


At the End of Everything

by patxaran



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, CONTENT TAGS GENERAL, CONTENT WARNING TAGS:, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Dehumanization, Fake Medicine, Languages, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Paranoia, Plot, Post-Dark Continent Arc, Slow Burn, Suicide, Swearing, comparatively happy ending after all the pain it takes to get there, dark continent arc spoilers, flesh collectors are so damn evil, horror/suspense elements, hxhbb, hxhbb19, kurta language, leorio is a genius doctor but i am not, long fic, mild body horror related to medicine, or at least complaint as of May 2019, pairo hangs out with leorio bless, scalpels, secondary character death, seriously i wrote this entire fic so pairo and leorio could interact, syringes, take everything medical with a grain of salt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2020-04-05 03:50:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 118,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19040554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patxaran/pseuds/patxaran
Summary: To buy time for Mizaistom’s investigation into dangerous, hidden forces manipulating the Hunter Association to lure out the “last set of Kurta Eyes”, Kurapika is appointed Hunter in-residence at the remote Solaris Basin Research Station. In addition to possessing some of the world’s most toxic flora and fauna, the basin is home to Lake Solaris, a seemingly sentient sea with mysterious powers. Within a day of arriving, Kurapika bears witness to a destructive event that nearly kills him, but his investigation into its cause is met with indifference by the two scientists on staff. Something within Lake Solaris has begun to stir, and its previously passive effects on the researchers takes a startling turn when visitors from the researchers' pasts begin appearing around the station.Back at headquarters, Mizaistom’s concern grows as Kurapika’s increasingly brief and harried updates taper off. After a vague, unsettling report concerning the death of the station’s medical doctor, he and Leorio decide to send Leorio to investigate and join up with Kurapika, before whatever's threatening the minds of the station's staff claims another victim.





	1. Hunter In-Residence

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the premise of the book Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem. You absolutely don't have to read that book to understand this fic, as the two are hardly related beyond there being a massive body of water that creates human simulacra from researchers’ minds. I just thought something like that would be a cool method to bring Pairo back to life while retaining the same dysfunctional leopika dynamic we've all come to know and love.
> 
> There are two movies based on the book Solaris, if you're curious. I haven't seen either one, so, this fic isn't related to them. In addition, I've heard the first English translation of the book itself wasn't great, but I've never read any English translations of Solaris. The fic therefore isn't related to its English translation, either. My copy of the book is in Spanish. I read it over the course of a month about four years ago. I haven't read it since.
> 
> So, cheers. Pairo hangs out with Leorio as I've always dreamed, and that's all that really matters.

Lake Solaris: Unreachable. Merciless. The Great Mystery. Kurapika had seen it referred to as such in books, but none of its photos made it out to be anything special. The strange phenomena that occurred on its waters had been too erratic to capture on film, leaving the outside world with a less-than impressive visual record unable to corroborate the more fantastical accounts detailed in writing. For Kurapika, this had become an encumbrance. With so little about the lake substantiated through video or photography, it’d been impossible to fully prepare for whatever he might encounter while assigned as Hunter in-residence in the sixty-year-old research station located on its shores.

After hours spend navigating the choked and shadowy paths winding down into the Solaris Basin, Kurapika at last got his first clear view of the research station through the trees. It loomed high up, like a forgotten ruin above the lake, desolate and unreal. Though the only man-made structure within miles of precarious wilderness, the vibrant, characteristic flora of the region hadn’t been incorporated into its austere design. The outer surface, as far as could be seen through the overgrowth creeping up the walls, was plated in dull, gray metal interrupted by tinted glass designating floor windows. At the top, the walls curved inwards before flattening out into an observation deck, giving the building the aspect of an overturned bowl a child had used to capture an escaping animal before it could disappear into the thick vegetation of the woods. Creeping up the walls were oversized, red ivy with a greasy, plastic sheen to its leaves, as well as knarred, teal-green vines that sprouted fluorescent yellow flowers streaked with black and magenta. They stood out, garish and deadly as coiled vipers, against the drab gray, and reminded Kurapika of the one thing no visitor to the Solaris Basin should ever forget.

Everything here pulsed with poison. 

There were no animals, and as far as anyone knew, there never had been. The lack of birdsong and buzzing of insects, like all immense silences, had its own deafening roar that grew to a physical presence, encasing Kurapika as he drew nearer to the steep shores of the lake. The books he’d studied beforehand called it a desert of sound. Something about the position of the mountains, the elevation, the unreality of the water itself, arrested even the faintest breeze. Only the vegetation persisted, its flowers pollinated at dusk and dawn by three native varieties of moth, the tiniest of which was capable of lighting upon a single strand of human hair.

Kurapika halted at a point where the path veered closest to the edge of the sheer-sided promontory the research station was built upon. Grainy photographs of the lake in reference guides had failed to convey the unearthly reality of seeing its surface for the first time. The energetic, shimmering movements of the waves unsettled him, not just because they were the only other source of sound beyond his own breathing, but also because the movements had no immediately ascertainable source. The basin hardly had a breeze, and nothing lived within the lake. Nothing, that is, but one thing, as it was frequently speculated the lake itself might be alive. It was a pulsing, writhing, living thing, that gestured up incomprehensibly with each lapping wave against the rocky walls of the crater-shaped basin it had poured itself into unknown millennia ago and settled in.

A sudden urge to find a stone and toss it into the lake, to break the swirling surface with a ripple of movement that reflected his own will upon it, filled Kurapika, and he sat back on his heels with the intention of searching around. There were no stones on the path, however. Kurapika wasn’t certain if this were natural, or if, after decades of frustration and fruitless research, every possible loose item nearby the station had been chucked forcibly into the uncaring face of the lake in an act of spite that, if the current state of research into the region proved anything, had changed nothing.

Despite the heat of the sun on his back, Kurapika shivered before standing back up. He should keep moving, he knew that, but he couldn’t tear himself away from the cliff’s edge, not yet. The bubble of En he’d deployed to navigate the woods had been sending him mixed information. Something was there, and at the same time nothing. His eyes and ears confirmed the nothingness, and yet the longer he stood still, the stronger the feeling of something imminent grew. Some invisible force was narrowing in on him, reaching out with impossibly long fingers to yank him down from the cliff and beneath the waves. When he summoned the strength to step away from the edge, the threat departed like a passing thought he never would’ve entertained. All that remained was the feeling of being watched, studied, taken note of.

The station’s nearest door was only a few minute’s walk uphill. For the first time in days, Kurapika was treated to sounds other than his own footsteps and haggard breaths. He tapped the access code into an unlit keypad, and something metallic and old whirled to life in response. There was a hiss of air escaping around a released seal, and the door slowly, almost cautiously, slid open just enough to permit him to pass. Kurapika squeezed through, irritated over the trouble and grumbling how he ought to be glad the door had opened at all. Still, it was only a minor inconvenience. In the ever-growing list of questions he intended to ask upon meeting the head research scientist running the facility, his annoyance over the front door not opening properly rested somewhere around the seventh or eighth most important thing. As always, first and foremost on his mind was figuring out what the hell it was he was expected to do out here for the next six months. It wasn’t an assignment he’d chosen for himself, and the description he’d been provided had come off as suspiciously vague and open-ended. There didn’t appear to be a real plan for what to do with him. All he had to do was show up and stay put. That was the beginning and end of everything he knew.

At first sight, the interior of the station showed its age, but not the full extent of its increasing disrepair. The encroaching vines didn’t obscure a single one of the large, convex windows that marched down the outfacing side of the hallway running in a ring around the entire first floor. The rounded walls were lined with small, clean, white tiles that gleamed in the late afternoon light. These lent an antiseptic quality to the hallway, like a metro tunnel that might second as hospital or a morgue. Kurapika brushed his fingers against the smooth, glazed ceramic as he walked further in, feeling it hard and cool to the touch through his gloves, and totally alien in comparison to the woods he’d been traveling through. The rolling sound of a wheeled machine hidden from view by the curve of the hallway told him the station was being kept up by robotic hands. That was how the tiles stayed so unnaturally white and brilliant, like the perfect, straight teeth of an executive’s son in a York Shin VIP lounge, whispering some bullshit Kurapika caught every word of into Neon Nostrade’s ear. 

Kurapika pulled his fingers back, his hand falling heavily to his side. The crowded places of the past, filled with noise and conversation and his secret sighs of exasperation, were so divorced from the reality of this empty and echoing hallway that looking back on them felt like peering over the shoulder of another person’s life. He wasn’t that same person anymore. He didn’t think with the same single-minded focus that’d defined him back then and given him purpose. Whoever or whatever he was now, everything had changed.

Although there were no signs indicating where to go, Kurapika knew the way. He’d been briefed on the layout of the station and all of its primary landmarks. It hadn’t been guaranteed anyone would be available to meet him when he arrived. The route from where he currently stood to where he wanted to go was the same no matter which way he went, so, he made the arbitrary choice to turn left. The outside door, which had been waiting for him to clear the threshold, hissed shut behind him, and there was a violent puff of damp air from a line of grating above, intended to knock off or neutralize any debris that clung to him. One of the cleaning robots from further down the passage ceased in its tasks and raced towards him with a childlike eagerness to begin sanitizing the area. Kurapika caught himself on the verge of smiling down at it in welcome, but reminded himself it was a machine, and also, even if it could’ve accepted a greeting, wouldn’t have been able to see his expression behind the mask and goggles protecting his face.

Kurapika kept walking. The damp, claustrophobic heat of his gear was lessening now that the chill air of the station trickled in through his multiple layers of clothing. He wanted to wrench off his mask and the sweaty cap holding back the hair beneath his hood, to plop down right there in the hall and draw in several great lungfuls of cool, uncontaminated air, but he didn’t trust the straggling particles he spied clinging to his clothes. There was a protocol for full decontamination, but with no-one to greet him and no way to access the proper facilities, he’d have to endure for a little longer with the rudimentary sanitation measures of the outlying hallway.

After walking a short distance, Kurapika stopped at a large set of double doors and searched for the control panel he knew would be concealed under a flap of tiled metal. If he’d turned right instead of left, an identical set of doors would’ve appeared on his other side and led the same central location. Many of the station’s design elements, particularly on the first level of the building, were part of a symmetrical whole. The only actual difference in choosing one direction or the other was the scene the hallway windows looked out on. Going right would’ve taken Kurapika past long windows looking out towards Lake Solaris, and he felt he’d seen plenty of it already on the way up. All he wished to do now was find out where he’d been assigned quarters and catch up on the sleep he’d been neglecting since he’d begun his trek.

The set of double doors slid open without hesitation, welcoming Kurapika to a new passage leading straight into the heart of the station. This area was darker, less superficially sterile. There were signs people passed through it at times, leaving marks the electronic attendants hadn’t been equipped to eliminate. Halfway down the passage, a long scratch began, like something had come to a skidding halt by digging into the wall. Kurapika stopped in front of it, noting that the gash went deep enough at one end to reveal a metal support beam. That the damage had never been patched over and re-tiled agreed with the reputation for carelessness the station staff had acquired over the past decade. Kurapika sighed, shook his head, and continued down the hall with less determination in his step.

From now and for the next half year, Kurapika would be under contract serving at the Solaris Basin Research Station. He’d have to accept whatever role the head of the station, Dr. Morro, assigned him, while also reporting back to the Hunter Association, the station’s newest owner and the offical, recognized governing body in charge of the region since last year. He’d been told to meet with Dr. Morro first thing at his workstation in the command center. If Dr. Morro wasn’t present, Kurapika was to wait until he arrived. Irritated by his lack of a welcome and exhausted from traveling, Kurapika hoped he wouldn’t be forced to wait. 

The control room door opened with an odd, plastic click, and, like the door outside, pulled away only enough for Kurapika to squeeze through sideways. It shut behind him with a swishing sound much sooner, almost catching his bag. Kurapika refused to allow these minor, mechanical inconsistencies to alarm him. Commonly used things like doors wore down over half a century of use. The overlarge station had been operating with a reduced staff for fifteen years by now, meaning most systems vital for life had become automated and were maintained by teams flown in for yearly maintenance checks. The typical biologists and Hunters passing through to conduct research couldn’t be expected to double as electricians and mechanics every time something non-essential went on the fritz.

“Doctor, uh, More-owe?” asked Kurapika tentatively into the silence of the control room. The hum of fans and electronics murmured gently through the logistical heart of the station’s giant, overturned bowl. The air was too cold, like drinking water with every intake of breath. Kurapika had been so long on foot trekking through the forests of the region by now that, in the presence of such heavily conditioned air, he shivered. Only the camera footage of the basin playing on empty workstation monitors and along a row of screens mounted on the far wall gave any indication there was a world of greenery and natural light beyond the warren of tiled passages and sliding doors Kurapika had just come through.

“Morro,” corrected a gruff, disembodied voice. “Go up on the first syllable, trill the r, keep the vowels short. That’s how you pronounce my name.”

Kurapika’s eyes needed more time to adjust to the flickering penumbra. He turned his head towards the end of the room where the voice had come from. A switch was turned, and a pale light came on at one of the workstations. The man sitting there, presumably Dr. Morro, eyed Kurapika with distrust, taking full measure of him in seconds and deciding he’d come up short. Kurapika returned the sentiment twice over, though his expression couldn’t be read behind his mask and goggles.

“I assume you’re Kurapika,” said the man, leaning back. The creak of the chair sounded as tired as Dr. Morro looked. Kurapika didn’t hazard to correct the man’s mispronunciation of his own name.

“I am,” said Kurapika. He stepped forward. “I’ve been sent by the Hunter Association to offer auxiliary support in the work being done at this station.” 

He stopped a few feet short of Dr. Morro. Lake Solaris had unsettled him on the way up along the cliff’s edge, and he glimpsed something equally as suspect in Dr. Morro’s eyes. Every nerve in Kurapika’s body rested on a hair-trigger as he froze and waited, unsure what threat might manifest, but fully prepared to engage it nonetheless. For the most part, however, Dr. Morro just looked slightly drunk.

“Is that really why you were sent?” asked Dr. Morro. Kurapika froze. “You mean your Association truly intends for you to serve an actual, functional purpose here for me, and that you weren’t actually just banished here so they could get you out of their hair?”

Dr. Morro coughed out a hoarse sound like a laugh he’d started but lacked the momentum to follow through on. Seeing this, Kurapika relaxed. As a general rule, he chose not to argue with drunks in bad moods. “Will I be assigned any particular job while I’m here?” he asked. “I’d like to know what, if any, purpose I’m expected to serve. I wasn’t given a lot of details beforehand, but maybe I could help with your research a little. Since I don’t have a scientific background, however, I’ll need a fair amount of training and support.”

“Frankly, you can throw yourself into the lake for all the good your help would probably do me,” scoffed Dr. Morro. Kurapika remained impassive. “There’s very little to study these days. There’s very little left we haven’t tried on that…the lake. We’ve pretty much arrived at what you might call an impasse. Nowhere left to go.” 

The man paused for Kurapika to ask him why this was. Kurapika did not.

“Well,” continued Dr. Morro with a newer note of agitation. “Just know not much has changed since the first idiot who set his eyes on this damn lake decided to dedicate his wasted, idiot life to cataloguing every wave shape and funny dance. If you’re any good of a Hunter, you should know that. And, you should know being sent here is basically a slap on the wrist for you people, not an opportunity.”

“I’m aware the field has stagnated.”

Dr. Morro snorted with derisive mirth. “‘Stagnated’. Sure. I guess that’s a polite way to put it.”

The groan of a machine initiating a new cycle of operation interrupted the tense quiet following Dr. Morro’s scornful laugh. A new process, a transition to another phase, likewise began on Dr. Morro’s face. In moments, he was businesslike, startlingly sober, and twice the age he’d appeared while grinning up at Kurapika from his workstation when Kurapika had entered. Without a word he stood and moved to another desk. There, a ledger lay open. Dr. Morro flicked on the lamp above it and leaned in closer.

“It’s three of us, with you here,” said Dr. Morro. “From the information I’ve been sent, I see you’re a Pro-Hunter, specifically a Blacklist Hunter, which means you have zero relative skills for scientific work. We don’t get a lot of escaped convicts in the Solaris Basin. So, you can do maintenance and equipment retrieval. Some of the probes and cameras out there are precariously placed, and accessing them requires a certain level of physical prowess neither Costu nor I possess. Some have been out of order for over a year by now. We need them brought in so they can be repaired or replaced.” Dr. Morro paused. He looked up from the ledger to Kurapika and shrugged. “So, I guess I just need to know if you’re good at climbing.”

“Fairly competent.”

“Great. We can give you the appropriate gear for outdoor work, too,” said Dr. Morro. He looked Kurapika over again and tsked at what he was wearing. “I’m shocked they didn’t send you out here in a set of coveralls. Did you really make your way down from the mountains in just trekking clothes?”

“I took careful steps.”

“Care? It was luck. There’s no way you didn’t make it through those woods without getting exposed. You were just lucky none of it was lethal. I can see the blisters on the back of your hand. Costu will set you up with ointments and bandages. Costu, by the way, is the medical doctor. I’m the PhD doctor. Don’t come to me for medical advice. If you fall out of a tree, I can’t help you. And if you fall into the lake...ha! No-one can help you.”

The blistering rash on Kurapika’s hand burned dully as he was reminded of it. He shifted to adjust the way his clothing pressed against the warm, stinging patch that by now had spread over his hand and up his arm. Everything in the woods pulsed with poison. Emerging unscathed, especially with the paths in such neglect, had been impossible.

“We’ll reconvene tomorrow, as a group,” said Dr. Morro, handing Kurapika an envelope with his individual access code and corresponding quarters assignment. He’d done this with great care, granting Kurapika a wide berth and warning him not to touch anything until he cleaned “all that shit off from outside”. Once Kurapika had the envelope in his hand, Dr. Morro stepped away quickly to reclaim the seat at his original workstation much further away. 

“Go find Costu in the doctor’s office. I have work to do, so, maybe he can give you the grand tour. He pretty much just sits around anyway. It isn’t like he has anything better to do.”

With this, the conversation effectively ended. Kurapika didn’t waste time with any brusque goodbyes or faring wells that would’ve been meaningless to someone like Dr. Morro. Instead, he turned around quietly, and without a word, he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was written for the [Hunter x Hunter Big Bang 2019 on tumblr](https://hxhbb19.tumblr.com). Check out the artwork created for this fic!
> 
> [Art by ferdbird](https://ferdbird.tumblr.com/post/185804414263/heres-my-entry-for-this-years-hunter-x-hunter). An illustration of the infamous Lake Solaris itself. This will not spoil the fic for you.
> 
> [Art by laarems](https://laarems.tumblr.com/post/185910025021/heres-my-piece-for-hxhbb19-for-the-fic-at-the). An illustration of a scene with Leorio, Pairo, and Kurapika from later on in the fic. It's not going to spoil you unless you have no idea what my brand is, and so you find the fact that I wrote Leorio holding Kurapika and crying at some point to be like a major, unforeseeable twist.


	2. Dr. Costu

The hall encircling the control room was a scaled down inversion of the one Kurapika had entered first. Straight hallways without doors branched off from it like the spokes of a wheel with the connecting pillar of the control room rising three stories up at its center. Each of these hallways stood empty and still. With the sound of the control room door whisking shut behind him, Kurapika's short encounter with Dr. Morro receded into distant memory. As much as when he’d arrived, he was on his own.

The research station was far too large for only three people. The intended capacity had been more than ten times the current amount. Specific rooms, including the upper floor in its entirety, had been cordoned off and abandoned over the years as staff and resources had been cut. The bordering provincial government had retained a moderate interest in continued research, but only to the end that some miracle or wonder might be discovered that would benefit the local economy. With no wonders or miracles forthcoming, conservative officials at the national level had stepped in and proclaimed the facility to be worth less than its operating costs. They petitioned for international assistance to keep the research going, or else they’d shut the station down, drain the lake, and develop the area.

At this time, the Hunter Association had swept in. As much a political entity it was an environmental protection agency, the organization had negotiated terms tirelessly for several years until they’d been granted full control of the lake and surrounding habitat, which they touted as ‘unique, a marvel of the world’s natural diversity and in need of preservation and protection’. The country the Solaris Basin was situated within retained nothing but the most tangential control of the area through its ownership of the habitable outfacing slopes of the surrounding mountains. Markers at the highest points of the passes leading into the basin specified where the new international border began, along with with signs alerting would-be visitors of the dangers, both physical and legal, of descending into the basin from that point on.

Future plans were in place to demolish the old research station and install a smaller, less environmentally intrusive alternative supported by mobile units. Dr. Morro, king of his beloved control room and with a lengthy career invested in the study of Lake Solaris, had protested the change and refused to move. A team sent to assess the station’s condition shortly after determined it was safe enough and habitable for the time being. The Hunter Association agreed to delay the station’s demolition, but as a compromise, Dr. Morro was forced to accept assistance from the Hunter Association and host all visiting researchers and Hunter Scientists who’d been assigned to the basin while he was in charge. Kurapika was the third of these official, Hunter Association-sponsored assistants. The first had stayed only two weeks while passing through the region. The second, who’d been sent on a half-year assignment like Kurapika, had abandoned the position after a month and was currently facing demotion within his department in the Hunter Association as a penalty. Kurapika had met this Hunter twice before setting out. He’d got the unnerving impression both times that, no matter the consequences, the Hunter regretted nothing about his decision to abandon his mission and run, risking both his life and his reputation in the process. 

Kurapika stood for a long time, frowning at the ground near his feet and trying to remember how to reach the station’s infirmary from the control room. Dr. Morro hadn’t given him any directions. Although there was a station map in his bag, he didn’t dare pull it out to double check, worried he’d contaminate everything inside and have to throw it all away. He nodded to himself after a while and followed the the curved hall until he reached the fifth of the eight hallway spokes. The thin, numbered plates above the archways had faded from red to a citric orange, the light behind them barely able to pierce the cloudy film of dust that’d settled inside. Kurapika struggled to read them until he realized that each hallway also had its number painted on both interior walls.

Sounds of life, of a soft and bumbling human body in action, grew as Kurapika passed the station’s medical labs on his way to the infirmary. There was no mistaking it for the delicate whispering of the cleaning robots he’d heard in the outer halls, so confident and precise in their movements, incapable of hesitation or failure. This was definitely a person, a person who’d just dropped something loudly and swore at both it and themselves in mild frustration.

“Hello? Dr. Costu?” asked Kurapika as he stepped into the open door of an office directly across from the infirmary entrance. Kurapika had been accused of sneaking up on people far too many times in the past, making it necessary and polite for him to announce his arrival as he entered a room. There was flurry of commotion as Dr. Costu was taken by surprise anyway. He nearly fell off his wheeled stool as he spun around.

“Oh, sorry, you’re the Hunter, right?” asked Dr. Costu, catching himself on the desk before making a full circle. He swiveled back to face Kurapika. “Huh. I thought because you’re a Hunter you’d be…brawnier. More aggressive looking. But no, you look like a teenager.”

“My appearance is misleading.”

“You have to still be in your twenties, though, right? If you’re, thirty, well...that’d be preposterous. I wouldn’t believe it.”

“I’m twenty-four.”

“Ah, so, still rather far off from your teens, then,” muttered Dr. Costu, cringing at the poor estimate he’d made. He squinted at Kurapika, trying to glimpse his eyes through his goggles under the glare of the infirmary’s fluorescent lights. Kurapika kept the goggles in place, but lowered his mask obligingly. If he accidentally poisoned himself now, at least he knew he’d get to a doctor in time. 

“What region are you from? I’ve done studies into lifespans, diets, and lifestyles around the world, so, I’ve traveled an impressive amount for someone who isn’t a Hunter like you,” said Dr. Costu. “Maybe Ekidina Provinces? Around there? It’s one of the healthiest regions in the human world. If you made it through the woods in such a poorly considered outfit, you must’ve been in exceptional condition to start with.”

“I’m not interested in divulging detailed information about my background.”

“Let me know if I’m close, at least. Lukson? Inoisia? Sinantu? Just a small hint. The average Hunter can come from literally anywhere in the world, but some places have a higher chance than others. I’m not going to judge you for it, if you’re worried. I mean, not unless you’re from Inoisia, perhaps….”

Kurapika held up his hand and pulled back his sleeve to reveal the blistering, inflamed skin beneath. “I don’t know how far this is going to spread, but I get the impression I’ll need to arrest its progress soon if I intend turn twenty-five by April, regardless of whatever region of the world I might hail from. It’s been spreading like this up my arm for two days now.”

Dr. Costu snatched up a pair of reading glasses hanging from a cord around his neck and leaned in to get a better look. His face, which was half hidden behind a scraggly beard, was close enough now that Kurapika could see he couldn’t be much older than thirty. He wore his glasses around his neck like an old man, and leaned forward with the same slow, constrained mobility, but he was far younger than the impression he gave. Unlike Dr. Costu, however, Kurapika wasn’t filled with an acute curiosity to find out where the man had come from or why his lifestyle was aging him so much, so soon.

Without saying a word, Dr. Costu nodded and sat back. He pushed off with his feet and rolled the wheeled stool along until he reached a back counter. From a cabinet, he produced a metal tube and tossed it to Kurapika. His throw was poorly aimed, and Kurapika had to jump to the side to catch the tube before it crashed into the floor. He shot Dr. Costu a critical look, but the man wasn’t watching to see if Kurapika had made the catch. Instead, he was measuring out a generous handful of pills from a bottle and pouring them into a paper packet. He motioned for Kurapika to back up, and placed a plastic cup with a pair of gloves shoved into it on the furthest end of his desk. He pressed the packet of pills firmly down on top and scooted away again, gesturing for Kurapika to come forward and take it.

“You were right to cover the affected hand with your sleeve to prevent yourself from transferring the residue of what you came into contact with to any other part of your body. Better to limit the cycle of re-exposure to your arm. That cream is to apply after you’ve washed the area. But first, crush these tablets and make a thin paste. You’re going to want to spread that over your entire body really well in case the oils from any other plants you brushed against transfer onto your skin from your clothes while you undress. I suggest you don’t pull anything up over your head, because if god-knows-which of these substances gets into your mucous membranes, you and I are going to end up spending a lot of quality time together, right away.”

“The shirt under my jacket can’t be removed without pulling it up.”

“Scissors. Cut it off. Trust me. It’s better to lose a shirt than go blind because toxic plant oils got into your eyes. Also, don’t sit down or lean against anything in your room until you get cleaned up. The housekeeping protocols manage the hallways, but your room is your own responsibility. We haven’t had functioning room decontaminating units in years.”

Kurapika nodded. He thought a moment, and asked, “How long have you been here, exactly?”

“Five years. You?”

Kurapika nearly answered without thinking, but saw just in time that Dr. Costu was grinning at him. Kurapika pursed his lips and grabbed the proffered supplies from the end of the desk.

“Remember to use cold water,” called Dr. Costu as Kurapika left. “And clean the bathroom so you don’t reinfect yourself for the next three months inadvertently. It’s all in your hands, Mr. Kurapika.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note that this fic is gonna have some scientific jargon used loosely [and inexpertly on my part] for the sake of atmosphere and character, but honestly, I’m here to have a good time, not learn or teach biochemistry. 
> 
> That said, fandom's a community and whatnot. You're welcomed to point out where I’ve gone wrong in the comments if something really bothers you. I didn’t have anyone with medical experience proofread this, so, I already expect there will be plenty of mistakes on that front alone. No matter what, I beg you not to lose sleep over it. This is just a leopika fic. Rest assured that if I ever wrote a “real” book one day featuring specialized scientific knowledge, I'd definitely have it proofread by a person of science operating in an appropriate field. The thing is I just don’t see the point of going that far for a free fanfiction a few hundred people will read, at best. So, while I apologize for any misinformation that might crop up, I also beg you to approach this fic bearing in mind that I'm not an expert on anything. I just write what sounds cool, and that's about it.


	3. Within a Day

At last, after the lengthy, prescribed process of cleaning and bandaging and throwing items away, Kurapika was free to collapse onto the hard bed of his living quarters, contaminate-free. He stretched out to his full length, savoring the ability to do so after days of trekking through poisonous woods, barely finding space enough to sit, much less lay down and go to sleep. His head was splitting, but it was impossible to know what the cause could be. He might be too tired, hungry, thirsty, or just too tightly wound. Pressing his palms to his eyes afforded mild relief, but it’d be difficult to keep it up while lying on his back. He took in a slow, deep breath and held it, before forcing the air out with a sigh. All his remaining strength seemed to disperse out into the empty room with the lungful of air, and he finally relaxed.

The sensations of life had resumed a shocking level of normalcy in no time at all. The past few days in the wilderness were a blurred dream, monotonous and easy to forget, even as the caution and fear that’d kept Kurapika alive refused to let him feel safe and secure enough in his bed to fall asleep too soon. The loose, institutional style clothing available to him was oversized, which felt strange compared to the more constricting trekking clothes he’d been wearing. Despite the awkward size, the material was smooth and cool against his blistered skin. After some wear and tear, it’d fit in perfectly alongside the tousled and stained versions of the same uniform worn by his new associates, all three of them frumpy and safe, tucked away indoors in matching science pyjamas.

Kurapika would never step out into the woods unprepared again. The moment he was assigned a computer login, he’d contact the Hunter Association to notify them of the degradation of the basin’s paths. The provincial government was paid to keep the primary path in and out of the basin clear as long as staff inhabited the research station, but evidently that money had gone elsewhere, and the paths had only been maintained a quarter of the way. If Kurapika hadn’t been pressed for time and keeping a low profile, he would’ve turned back and complained in the nearest village before making a second attempt with better equipment later.

As Kurapika lay in the bed wavering on the cusp of restless sleep, an unfamiliar sensation passed through him that sent the hair at the back of his neck standing on end. His ears strained for the sound of an intruder, but he heard only the drone of the air conditioning rattling incessantly throughout the building. For a few, optimistic seconds, he convinced himself that he’d been stirred by the sound of something settling in the vents. The research station was more than sixty years old after all, and older buildings had a tendency to shift around, creating strange, unexpected noises. After the near-absolute stillness and silence of the woods, no-one could blame him for being on edge because of something so normal and easily ignored.

Before Kurapika could fully convince himself everything was fine, the same eerie sensation cut through him again. No sound accompanied it. Worse still, whatever it was seemed to sense he was awake now. It didn’t pass over him glancingly as it had before, but doubled back and focused in. At last, Kurapika recognized it. This was a more intense form of the watchfulness he’d felt haunting his steps as he’d walked along the cliff leading up to the station. Just like then, no matter how he strained, every physical sense assured him nothing was there, not in the room, not in the hall outside, not in the entire station as far as he could reach with his En. He only felt the weight of the other presence inside his mind, which meant it must be inside of him. He’d never used his Nen to search inwards, however. He couldn’t trace the source of an intruder from within his own mind.

Kurapika’s flesh pricked with the chill of cold air on welling perspiration. He swallowed hard, reminding himself he’d been warned of this, though the disturbing reality of the sensation paled in comparison to others’ descriptions of it. Recent reports claimed the phenomenon had grown stronger as staff numbers dwindled and the lake—though there was no substantiated proof it was indeed the lake itself causing this—found itself with fewer minds to pry into. The Hunter who’d fled from the station had claimed this eternal, intrusive watchfulness as one of the primary factors in his ultimate decision to flee. After a month, he couldn’t stand the imagined shapes flitting around in his periphery or the gnawing suspicion that he was never quite alone.

Kurapika had asked the Hunter how the other researchers, two average humans, could’ve withstood something a fully trained and licensed Hunter found unbearable. The Hunter had told him the man in the control center, Dr. Morro, never left that room. Dr. Morro felt that, if he always watched the screens, monitoring the lake as it monitored him, it would qualify as an even split. The medical doctor, meanwhile, originated from a country ruled by a totalitarian regime, where citizens were distrusted and under unceasing surveillance by their own government. For him, the intrusive feeling was natural. He’d told the Hunter that he actually preferred the scrutiny of the lake, because at least he knew when it was watching. 

“It’ll be worse for you, because you’re new, and you’re not going to be used to it,” the Hunter had said. “The best is to hope you’re already asleep. It likes to focus on people sleeping. They say it gets into your brain and plays around in your dreams. They say after a month you dream of nothing but an endless magenta sea covering an entire planet below a sky of stars you don’t recognize.”

Only after his own first-hand experience of the lake’s watchfulness did Kurapika realize his cold incredulity while listening to the other Hunter had been misplaced. He turned onto his side to face the wall, pulling his blanket up to his chin as he went. It was a futile gesture, but he couldn’t resist shrinking away. He needed to fulfill the physiological urge to escape, to conceal himself. He would’ve gone into Zetsu, too, if he’d dared to leave himself defenseless for even a second.

Gradually, the watchful sensation abated. The unease Kurapika felt took much longer.

He needed to fall asleep faster. He’d read about past researchers suffering from stress disorders after prolonged exposure to such a heavy presence descending upon them on the verge of sleep. The Hunter he’d interviewed claimed he’d fled the station because Dr. Costu had refused to prescribe him sleeping aids. The Hunter had also used this fact to argue against the charges for abandoning his mission, stating that he’d clearly been delirious after being deprived of sleep. Against his better judgment, Kurapika had taken the Hunter’s advice to bring his own medical provisions on the off-chance Dr. Costu wouldn’t cooperate with him, either. Now, however, he thought he understood why such a request had been denied. Depending on chemical assistance to sleep in such an high-stress environment could prove disastrous in the long-term. If one couldn’t find a way to cope on their own, then escaping the basin itself was preferable to escaping through medication.

Kurapika sighed and rose from the bed. He went to pull a chest out of a cabinet in the corner of the room where he’d deposited the unsullied contents of his now ruined satchel. Kneeling down, he spun a code into the old-fashion padlock. It clicked open with an eager spring, and he yanked it free, placing it on the ground before swinging back the chest’s lid.

Nestled between his Kurta garb, a spare towel, and a collection of minor non-essential items, there was a pouch containing a comprehensive array of emergency medical supplies tailored to this particular journey. It’d taken two weeks for him and Leorio to put it together, with Leorio texting him up until the final moment with alternatives and substitutions he could find if he had to restock at foreign ports. Each and every item, from basic sunscreen to potent antihistamines, had proven invaluable, and Kurapika partly credited these items and the good health he’d maintained on his journey with being what had got him through the poisonous woods at all.

In a flap of the medical pouch, tucked inside a hidden compartment intended for identification cards, were ten small envelopes, five doses each, of a potent sleeping powder of dubious legality. This was something Kurapika had packed himself without consulting Leorio. He already knew Leorio would’ve objected to it and then hounded him for assurance that he wouldn’t disregard his advice and bring the sleeping powder along anyway. Leorio hadn’t seen the look in the Hunter’s eyes as he’d recalled the lake’s presence in his mind. He hadn’t been shaken by the glint of desperate, abiding dread while at the same time knowing he was headed for the same place.

With considerable care, Kurapika wrest the stuck envelopes from the small compartment they’d occupied untouched since he’d departed for the Solaris Basin. Once freed, they fit neatly in his open hand like a deck of cards, making the softest of dry sounds, powder against smooth paper, as their contents shifted inside them. He splayed the envelopes out in an even row over a long counter that ran the length of wall beneath the windows. He considered them in silence for a long while. They were so light, so innocuous. Ten small slips of paper, really. They were so thin it was as if they contained nothing at all. With a puff of air, a heavy sigh, they’d scatter wildly like startled birds. And yet, a fifth of the powder within each one could carry him to a sleep so profound and dreamless it was like falling forever down a well towards the center of the earth.

Kurapika considered his options. With a faint tremble of doubt in his fingers, he arranged the envelopes once more into an orderly stack and carried them between his cupped hands to the bathroom. The room still stank of detergents even after being aired out, the poison of the outside world replaced by the caustic reek of cleanliness. He took a glass and inverted an envelope over it until the bottom was coated with a fine dusting of powder. A small puff of particles rose in the air as he snatch up the next envelope and poured it out in the same way, careful not to inhale sharply before covering his mouth with his sleeve in afterthought.

Halfway through the muted frenzy of emptying packets, Kurapika stopped. It dawned on him in his fatigued state that the station had a closed, recycled water supply. They certainly weren’t drinking whatever the hell was residing below in the basin. His plan, to dispose of the drug down the sink, now appeared rather foolish. He didn’t know the sort of filtration system used in the station. It might be difficult for it to clear this medication from the water. He might be poisoning the well if he poured it down the drain.

Kurapika left the bathroom to find the pair of slip-on shoes and bathrobe he’d selected from the storeroom along with the rest of his uniform. He then took the glass, already filled by a quarter, and left. It was highly unlikely he’d run into either of the doctors and have to explain himself. Though their assigned quarters all shared the same hall, Dr. Morro wouldn’t have left the control room so early in the evening, and Dr. Costu often slept in the infirmary instead of his room. No matter where he went, Kurapika was effectively alone. 

Alone, that was, but for the occasional eyes that followed him, incapable of deciphering the motive for his impromptu evening stroll. The sensation of being watched washed over him forcefully two more times, but it was easier to bear while walking. Perhaps it was less intrusive out in the open where a person already half-expected to lack privacy. There’d been something in his field guide about avoiding idleness in order to stave off the lake’s effects. As long as Kurapika had something to do, something to focus on, it wouldn’t bear down on him so heavily.

Kurapika made his way up to the top of the station. The elevator carried him as far as the abandoned top floor, which he expected to be dark and cold. He was wrong. The large, blindless windows wrapping around the domed room were luminous at sunset and filled the space with welcoming brightness and a passive warmth. Holding a hand over the glass to steady it, Kurapika crossed the room towards a litter-strewn and dusty stairwell that led up to the observation deck, the highest point in the entire facility.

The vines and deadly flowers growing outside had yet to reach the observation deck’s platform. The automated housekeeping measures in place to maintain an unobstructed view out the windows pruned away anything that blocked incoming light. Therefore, the long, panoramic window dominating the lower floor doubled as a barrier. In addition to allowing a perfect view of Lake Solaris’s massive southern expanse hemmed by mountains, it protected the vital, filtered air ducts on the roof that made the station habitable.

The heat outside warmed Kurapika’s refrigerated limbs pleasantly. Keeping his hand in place over the water glass, he stepped out onto the platform. The station fell away in an instant, leaving him feeling exposed and keenly aware he wasn’t properly outfitted to be outside, though it was unlikely the poison of the basin floor would reach him so high up where there wasn’t any breeze. The faraway lake below surrounded him on three sides, closing him in and promising to catch him if he tumbled off. Kurapika couldn’t help glancing down to see it. The fading orange and gold light of the setting sun beyond the mountains wasn’t reflected in the lake’s undulating surface. The dark waters were more turbulent now. A cap of dull, gray foam, thick as suds in a bath, moved slowly across the distorted surface, as if making a mockery of the radiant, underlit clouds nearer the mountains. 

The platform of the observation deck grew darker as the sun dipped further down, lengthening the shadows cast by the mountains. Kurapika approached the rail with more than slight trepidation. Though they didn’t normally fly up so high, the moths living in the basin were coated in poison. To have one land upon his exposed hand would send Kurapika straight into Dr. Costu’s tactless care. With this in mind, he moved quicker. Covering his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his robe again, he stretched his arm as far as he could over the precipice, then jerked his wrist sharply, expelling the powder from the glass into a stupefying cloud. He backed out of its range as gravity took effect and rained the particles down. In moments, a powdery bloom coated the side of the station below like the glaucous coating on the skin of a gunmetal gray grape. It was imperfect, this method of disposal, but there was no wind that could carry the particles very far. At any rate, the danger was out of reach. That was the most important thing. Satisfied, Kurapika turned to go.

A flicker of light, sudden and bright as a lightning bolt, flashed in the far-off southern corner of the lake. Through the thin soles of his shoes, Kurapika felt the platform quiver before the deafening boom of the explosion crashed into it next. Instinctively, he pulled the hood of his robe over his face and turned away. A second later, a gust of hot air struck his back. The rumbling of moving earth, cracking trees, and loud splashes told him the cliff face across the basin had crumbled away and fallen into the lake. 

Relying on his En to guide him, Kurapika bolted blindly towards the door of the station. To expose his face or take a single breath of the poisonous dust cloud would kill him in swift, agonizing moments. He clawed at the panel beside the door as he crashed into it until he found the keypad and entered the passcode. It opened on the first try. He flung himself through the entryway without looking back, using the momentum after he caught himself from tripping to keep on running down the stairs. As his initial shock subsided, pain welled up from everywhere at once. He collapsed in a heap at the bottom the stairs, his entire body on fire. 


	4. Anaphylaxis and Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FLASHBACK (in case anyone reads too fast and doesn’t realize—I’ve got you)

“ ‘Nearly every substance humans come into contact with in the area is coded as an antigen once metabolized. In less severe instances, the patient will present with a localized rash, weeping blisters, and intense irritation and itching. However, even seemingly mild exposure has been reported to lead to anaphylaxis and death. The Solaris Basin is therefore deemed unfavorable for human settlement, and—without proper and near-constant sanitation of the dwelling place, in addition to rigorous, comprehensive training on the perils such an environment presents to the human organism—functionally uninhabitable.’ ”

On the other end of the video call, a lengthy silence fell, broken only by the smooth rolling tap of a ballpoint pen against the unlined paper of Kurapika’s hardcover notebook. He’d ignored the point about how uninhabitable the basin was, and instead scrambled to remember how to spell “anaphylaxis” before he lost his train of thought and would have to ask Leorio to read the passage again.

“So, it sounds like more of the same info from all the other sources,” said Leorio as he shut the book with a snap and tossed it onto a pile of more books at the corner of the desk. “That’s it, then, everything. The Association’s entire library of medical knowledge pertaining to the Solaris Basin. Where’s my goddamn medal? I deserve some kind of award for these past three days.”

“The award is I don’t die,” muttered Kurapika impatiently as he looked back through his almost filled notebook. “Attention to book seven, page 105, figure 3b, the description of Albinoni’s weeping nettle.” There was a sigh and the creak of a chair as Leorio sat forward. “I’m not sure if it ought to be the effect of the acid or the neurotransmitters I’ll need to counteract first. What’s the composition of the venom on the chart?”

“I mean, both are going to hurt,” said Leorio before breaking off into a wide yawn as he traced his finger over the books’ spines and squinted. He tugged one carefully from the bottom of the pile. “Don’t let the pain distract you, though. You’re going to need to direct your attention to the inflammation first and foremost. Regardless of the venom’s particularly high acidity, the initial inflammation is going to be coming from the histamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin. I can tell you that much even before I get to the page. But if you’re curious, I’m there now, and it says exactly what I just said: The acidity, while high for plant venom, is negligible compared to the action of the neurotransmitters, which are going to initiate the inflammatory response upon contact. So, in short, pack a lot of antihistamine and corticosteroid creams. You’ll need to block the receptors.”

“And this variety of nettle grows on trees, correct?”

“Yep.”

“So, what if I’m hit in a vital area? Somewhere more delicate than an arm or a leg?”

“Uh…more delicate?”

“Like my face. My eyes. My nose.”

“Ah, yeah. Well, it’s more of the same reaction, but this time it’s mucus membranes and soft tissue. I would off the bat suggest being as proactive as possible about protecting your face, because obviously, if you get a faceful, mouthful, eyeful, or noseful of literally anything in that forest, it’s straightaway a medical emergency. So, uh, walk carefully. Don’t trip. Duck everything.”

Kurapika sighed and looked up from his notes and into the video screen. “Leorio,” he said shortly. “I’m going to need details, not you repeating the obvious in lieu of a real answer. Accidents happen. I have to be prepared. Let’s not waste our time here.”

“You think I’m wasting our time when I'm giving you my sound medical advice that you asked me for?” 

“Leorio. Advising me, in your professional medical opinion, to _duck_ and _not trip_ is something I absolutely consider a waste of time.”

“Hey. You know, you should watch your tone,” said Leorio warningly. “A week cooped up in archive rooms and libraries hunting down primary sources for you is exhausting enough, alright? I don’t feel like topping it all off with a chat at godforsaken two in the morning describing to you how you’re going to die alone surrounded by plants half a world away where no-one can help you. Because that’s what happens in the scenario where you get a faceful of anything out there alone, okay? You die. It’ll be agonizing. And you’re not going to care as you’re writhing in agony exactly which autoimmune response triggered is going to be the precise one that kills you ahead of all the other equally harmful neurotoxins racing through your bloodstream. Realistically speaking, you’re most likely going to spend every last bit of your brief, remaining seconds of consciousness in a futile fight against the symptoms, the immense and excruciating pain of it all, and then, you’re going to die. And that’s it. That’s what happens, Kurapika. So, you better fucking _duck_ and _not trip_.”

Kurapika put his pen down for a short break, crossing his hands over the open notebook. “You know,” he said, staring directly into the camera, “ I have other ways of dealing with physical damage than creams and injections in an emergency. I have my own abilities.”

Of course Leorio knew. He knew so well he hated to be reminded, and he interrupted Kurapika with an exaggerated yawn before Kurapika could say anything more. Kurapika waited as Leorio finished running his hands over his face, then up through his hair, tugging hard at the ends and scratching his scalp briskly to wake himself up. Leorio was too tired to argue. He was too tired to even be awake at the current hour, but for Kurapika, he was capable of small miracles.

“You shouldn’t,” stated Leorio, softly but firmly. He didn’t look up at the camera pointed at him as he leaned heavily over the surface of a desk two time zones ahead of Kurapika’s location. “You shouldn’t need to resort to that. You’re careful. You won’t need it. The plants aren’t going to jump out at you.”

“There could easily be an accident.”

“You’re more careful than that.”

“It’s still a waste of time and energy to repair what I don’t know, and I’ll fall ill and pass out if I’m not judicious with my aura use,” Kurapika pointed out. “Now, I’ve studied battle injuries extensively, but I haven’t really looked into anything like this. You’re right that the plants won’t jump out at me, but the truth is I’m more prepared to face an enemy that directly attacks me than I am to combat an autoimmune response within my own body. For this reason, I’d rather you explain to me step by step what’ll be killing me, and then, I can come up with a strategy, and you can help me troubleshoot. It’s faster this way. I haven’t got a lot of time left to prepare, and who knows how often I’ll be able to call after I leave Zaban, and especially once I’ve entered Snaut Province.”

Leorio sighed. “The problem is you designed your ability for quick repairs in the heat of battle, and not for…for…” Leorio grumbled inaudibly to himself and didn’t finish. “Forget it,” he said. He reached past the camera for the bag he’d been using to prop up his phone, and the image on the screen spun and became a gradient of yellow lamplight on a faraway checkerboard of pale, finely fissured ceiling tiles. Movements disturbing the light coincided with sounds of Leorio sliding the bag over and removing several additional books he’d brought along. He continued speaking without appearing on the screen.

“They should’ve given you a three month training course to prepare you for this mission. Even better six months. Who the hell gets sent to one of the most inhospitable regions of the known word with only three weeks and a manual on station operations that’s seventy-percent sanitation protocol? If you didn’t have me here already doing my own research at headquarters, free whenever to tip-toe around in the middle of the night and sneak books for you….”

“Mizaistom told you why.”

“But…” here Leorio struggled for words. He was still in denial of the reality of the situation as had been explained to him by Mizaistom. “...Are Blacklist Hunters really tracking you down? Can’t he find some way to prevent that? Some kind of an injunction, maybe? Pass some special order within the organization itself?”

“He has, but that’s not the kind of thing that’s going to stop the sort of people we’re dealing with.” 

“But these kinds of missions require extensive training and--”

“But I can’t risk being seen taking up a sudden interest in the Solaris Basin,” Kurapika cut in impatiently. “Formal training will just announce to the entire Hunter society where they can find me. It’s too obvious. Even the Hunter website isn’t safe right now. There only needs to be one Tech Hunter running the website at headquarters who sympathizes with the opposing faction, and immediately my personal account is compromised….”

The image on the screen spun again, and after a few adjustments, Leorio was back in view. The lamplight fell on him at a new angle, drawing attention to his heavy eyes and sleepy, undeliberately disinterested expression. Kurapika stopped speaking. He’d explained to Leorio why physical resources were necessary as opposed to looking everything up on the Hunter website. It wasn’t the sort of thing that needed to be said twice. Kurapika’s own exhaustion was beginning to rear its head at last. He was getting careless, wasting their time himself now.

“Um, sorry,” said Kurapika. He hesitated a moment and added, “But thank you, Leorio. Really. Thanks for helping me prepare for this. I know it’s been getting in the way of your sleep, perhaps affecting your work. I apologize.”

“It’s nothing,” said Leorio with a small, dismissive wave. He pulled one of his own books towards him and opened it to search the index. “This is an extenuating circumstance, you know. I don’t mind.” A second later, he was stifling another yawn. “It’s just tiring after a whole week of this stuff,” he muttered sleepily. “That’s all. It’s not the end of the world.”

“I’ll be out of your hair completely in another week.”

“Yeah, and then?” asked Leorio. “When will you be back? Have you guys figured that one out yet?”

“It really depends on the investigation…and the trial. Mizaistom said the last case he’s found closest to setting a precedent for this one took a substantial amount of time to resolve.”

“Substantial as in months, or?”

“Three years.”

Leorio looked directly into the camera while the hand that’d been holding up his face fell onto the open book. 

“You’re not seriously moving to a rundown research lab in the middle of Killer Poison Plant Land for three years,” he said.

“Well, I mean….”

“When was the last time we even met in person? A year? Year and a half ago?” demanded Leorio. He was awake now, overcome with disbelief. “And now? You’re telling me you might be playing Danger Botanist for three more years. I guess I need to book my next vacation for the exotic Solaris Basin, then. That lake had better have a beach on it.”

“The previous case only took so long because it was neglected and kept changing hands within the organization. My case is a bit more heated than that. The Kurta are extinct in their natural range, but there’s at least one left...somewhere, acting like it's people.”

Leorio slammed the cover of the book back open as it started to close itself. Pages fluttered up violently and fell into place. Something heavy Kurapika couldn’t see hit the ground and was ordered to stay put.

“Don’t you dare say it like that, even joking,” said Leorio. “You _aren't_ part of some extinct species playing human, and I say that with the full authority of a physician who’s tended to your health personally on far too many impromptu occasions.” 

“Except I also exist as a monster in regional folktales going back generations in my home province. That’s a lot better.”

“The paranoid nutjobs harping on that as evidence of anything whatsoever are just going after you because it’s easier than finding any of those supposed humanoid Chimera Ants no-one’s ever actually seen but are terrified of. You and the Kurta people are at least verified to exist outside some dusty, five-year-old rumors from crackpot eco-cultists in the Mitene Union. Still, you know better than to believe all that’s really why anyone has started to give a shit about some Kurta remnant out of nowhere.” 

Leorio scoffed, and Kurapika knew what he was going to say before the words even left his mouth. There was one primary root of all evil in Leorio Paladiknight’s eyes. Everything came down to one all-powerful, inescapable force.

“It’s the money,” said Leorio. “That’s all they really care about, not your clan. Word’s got out there’s a Kurta left after all the other eyes on the human flesh market mysteriously disappeared, and this big damn scare dressed up as an intellectual debate on taxonomy and humanoid beasts’ rights is just a diversion to draw you out and hunt you down.”

Kurapika kept quiet. He stared down at his notes, not seeing them, shrugging along but adding nothing to Leorio’s tirade even as it threatened to rise well above a whisper. It didn’t take long for Leorio to notice. He was just beginning to launch into one of his favorite tangents of complaint, Mizaistom Nana and the man’s management of the entire situation, but didn’t get far before stopping himself.

“In any case, never mind. I give Mizaistom a lot of shit about this whole plan whenever I see him around already. I don’t hold back,” said Leorio, keeping his voice low again, more controlled. “But, how is he supposed to legally defend you _and_ try to figure out who’s all running this, leaking private Association data? I don’t agree with his approach to your safety, sending you out into the middle of nowhere with hardly a few week’s notice. I know we’ve got to keep ahead of the game, but this is an extremely dangerous place you’re going, and there’s so little time to get ready. Everything about this makes me uncomfortable.”

“I know. I don’t like it, either. But, really,” Kurapika gestured vaguely upwards, “do I have any other choice?”

“I wish you did,” said Leorio. He sighed and picked up the book in front of him. He cleared his throat and straightened before speaking again, getting back into a working mindset.

“Okay then, moving along. Start a new section in your notes, ‘immunological response’. We only have time for the basics now, but we’ll pick up here tomorrow with analysis and strategies. I’m also going to suggest some books you might easily find in Zaban for self-study and review, so, remind me in case I get tired and forget. You’ll need to add them to your reading list, okay? Are you ready?”

Kurapika took up his pen and positioned it over the next blank page in his notebook, directly below the underlined title “Immunological Response Summary”. Next to the notebook, he set the page with his reading list in clear view so he wouldn’t forget to update it before the call ended.

“I’m ready,” announced Kurapika with a small huff of a sigh. “You can start.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The flesh prickled and burned where the air touched Kurapika’s exposed skin. He imagined it shearing off from the friction as he clutched at his clothes. The fabric, once smooth and comforting, now grated against the itching, angry welds spreading over his body. He raised his trembling right hand to his face and visualized the gentle clink of chains slipping over irritated skin, each delicate link locked inseparably and terminating at fixed points on rings around his fingers. He curled the hand into a loose fist for a moment and slowly released. Down tumbled the narrow cross of the healing chain, dangling from the ring on his thumb.

For now, throat, eyes, and ears needed the most attention. The poisonous particles spreading tongues of flame across his arms and torso would continue to react and incite a response until they were physically removed, which made treating those symptoms futile and exhausting. Priority was given to reactions that could kill or severely incapacitate him. Then, once he was stable enough to keep moving, his only objective was to find help.

Kurapika forced himself to stand using the railing as a support. He kept the healing chain wrapped around his upper body, curing the inflammation threatening to suffocate him as every defending cell in his body dove into the fray. There was a decontamination room on this floor, but he knew it wouldn’t be stocked and the water supply would be shut off. He continued, half collapsing down the next flight of stairs, to take the elevator down to the infirmary. It was a longer trip than going to his room, but if he could reach a doctor, it was better than passing out alone from the physical and spiritual anguish of keeping himself alive.

“What the hell?” cried Dr. Costu, recoiling in shock at the sight of Kurapika leaning heavily against the doorframe across from his office. “Don’t touch anything. Stay right the hell there.”

Kurapika didn’t need to be told. The rush of energy that’d got him this far had run out at last. Clumsily he went to his knees, fighting the urge to throw up as a wave of nausea passed through him. He couldn’t remember anymore what caused that particular symptom, what to do about it, how he was supposed to fix anything. Everything hit him at once, the pain, the sickness, the exhaustion. Before long, the contents of his stomach splattered across the floor beneath him, and he was gasping for air, feeling drowned.

His consciousness flickered as his aura steadily extinguished itself. Dr. Costu reappeared during a brief window of awareness, swathed in protective gear and bearing a full tray of supplies. He helped Kurapika the rest of the way to the ground, muttering admonishments under his breath as he did so, and questioning what the hell it was Kurapika had just done, gone outside and rolled around?

Kurapika, his throat too closed to speak, didn’t answer. He fainted moments later, uncertain of what the outcome would be, but no longer able to fight to stay awake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a few weeks updates will be sporadic because of my schedule.


	5. Healing Chain

“I know your people have a tendency to die horribly, but perhaps outright anaphylactic shock mixed with a cocktail of the area’s finest toxins is bordering on excessive.”

Kurapika didn’t look over. The healing chain around his torso required more concentration than the conversation Dr. Costu was trying to have with him.

“My people?” he asked.

“You’re from the Kurta clan. I saw your eyes.”

Upon waking, Kurapika had requested a list from Dr. Costu, organized from the most critical to the benign, of every injury he’d sustained as a result of his exposure to the toxic particles stirred up in the shockwave of the explosion. He hadn’t cared for the date, how long he’d been unconscious, or even to hear Dr. Costu’s dire prognosis. His chief concern was the list, and then, he’d passed out. Bewildered, but not one to deny a dying man his last wish, Dr. Costu complied and returned with the full, itemized list by the time Kurapika woke a second time. After handing it over, he’d jumped back in alarm, observing with mingled curiosity and fear as Kurapika’s eyes flashed scarlet, and the mysterious chain from when Kurapika had arrived to the infirmary re-emerged from some unseen location up his sleeve to wrap around his torso.

“It really is true about red eyes, then,” said Dr. Costu. “The Kurta are beyond the average human. They possessed unnatural abilities.”

Kurapika looked straight at Dr. Costu with the aforementioned red eyes as though the man were an idiot. Dr. Costu winced and shifted his gaze to his lap. Now that Kurapika was sitting up on his own and improving inexplicably, Dr. Costu tried to minimize the fact that he’d been actively avoiding the single patient room he’d for all intents set Kurapika down to die in two days ago.

“Do Kurta age like regular humans?” asked Dr. Costu. Kurapika was taken aback by the question and frowned. Dr. Costu hurried to explain. “I’ve read that you’re the longest lived of the native peoples in your geographical region, and among the fifty longest lived tribes of humankind throughout the world.”

Kurapika had no time to respond with a cutting remark. The tragic fate of the Kurta clan crossed Dr. Costu’s mind almost as soon as he’d finished speaking, and his face flushed with embarrassment.

“Ah, however this, this is just going by greatest maximum lifespans attained, not _average_ lifespan, because in that case…well, we should say it doesn’t take into account the rate of attrition that your, uh, population has suffered by other means. On the plus side, though, there’s a very good chance you’ll live to be a centenarian provided nothing else gets to you first. Though, yes, unluckily your clan does also have one of the highest incidents of _violent_ death worldwide. In that calculation, your specific, heritable, somewhat I would say supernatural, uh, ocular situation is taken into full account.”

As he spoke around this “ocular situation”, Dr. Costu gestured to Kurapika’ face. Kurapika’s frown deepened.

“But still,” said Dr. Costu in conclusion, “on average, a Kurta who makes it past 65 is virtually guaranteed by the statistics to break triple digits. So, good news, right?”

Kurapika’s face repressed all emotion as he stared the doctor down.

“A lot can happen in 41 years,” said Kurapika.

Dr. Costu’s gaze flitted over the healing chain. It was impossible not to stare. Once again, all he could think about was how Kurapika should’ve been dead. Kurapika sighed.

“I’m in no need of your bedside manner,” said Kurapika. The chain around his torso recoiled, and Kurapika’s eyes faded back to dull brown. With the release of his Nen, the rest of his body relaxed, and he leaned back into the embrace of the tall pillows supporting him. From the bedside table, he took up the book Dr. Costu had come by to drop off. Kurapika had taken an interest in the flora of the basin while reading the list of ailments Dr. Costu had drawn up for him, and according to Dr. Costu, this book, one of a series composed by a former botanist at the station, was the most comprehensive resource available on the subject.

Dr. Costu took the cue to leave, but hesitated at the door before turning back around. After a moment, he said, “You Hunters are kind of scary, you know, even without glowing red eyes. I assume that chain of yours has some sort of curative effect? You’re using it to reverse the lethal damage you’ve accrued?”

The weak thud of a heavy leather cover being turned on Kurapika’s lap seemed as if it might be the only answer Dr. Costu would receive. It was imprudent of him to ask about the details of Kurapika’s ability; Dr. Costu had had enough limited experience with Hunters to know that by now. In addition, it was a stupid question. Of course the chain had a curative effect. How else could Kurapika have survived?

“My abilities are not a matter for light conversation,” said Kurapika at last with notable disinterest. He didn’t look up at Dr. Costu again, but began leafing through the book to find the page where he’d left off earlier. “I no longer require your assistance, and there’s no reason for you to keep me company here. You may go.”

Dr. Costu bristled at Kurapika’s tone but held his tongue. He mumbled something about having other work to do anyway and exited the room. The day before, when Kurapika had expressed his initial, requisite gratitude to Dr. Costu for doing his job and saving his life, his words had lacked a certain touch of sincerity, and therefore, respect. It’d sounded as if Kurapika were more or less ambivalent to the fact he’d survived at all, which had disturbed Dr. Costu nearly as much as the glowing red eyes and the magic powers. For this reason, although Dr. Costu was diligent enough to check in on him at reasonable intervals, he all but ran from the room at the first opportunity, not wishing to discover why everything to do with Kurapika made him so uncomfortable and, frankly, somewhat afraid.

The book in Kurapika’s lap wasn’t just some collection of field notes as Dr. Costu had made it out to be, but a botanical encyclopedia of the Solaris Basin’s flora composed on-site by a Hunter-botanist twelve years ago. The full catalogue of specimens contained in the series, three thick volumes in total, was more comprehensive than anything Mizaistom or his team had been able to find for Kurapika in online Hunter databases. When he was well enough, he’d contact the Hunter Association with a proposal to update the information for the region. More than climbing up after broken cameras and observation equipment in the role of a glorified maintenance worker, the task of meticulously double-checking and refreshing what little was known of the biodiversity of the Solaris Basin would prove a much more adequate use of a studious Hunter’s time and skills.

One thing concerned Kurapika as his studies into the basin's ecosystem grew longer and more in-depth. As far as Kurapika had read, the Solaris Basin possessed zero exploding landforms or plant life. This was disconcerting, because when he’d explained the explosion and asked Dr. Costu what might’ve caused it, Dr. Costu had only grown wide-eyed and shrugged, uncertain, before tentatively asking if Kurapika was positive there hadn’t been a plane or a missile. Maybe the national government still wanted to develop the land and was hoping the forest would catch fire if they dropped bombs on it? The basin wasn’t located in a politically stable part of the world. Governments here might not be too far above somewhat cartoonish villainy to achieve their aims.

To Kurapika, such a theory had been too convoluted, because even if the neighboring country did raze the basin’s forests to the ground, there was no guarantee they’d receive the land afterwards. The Hunter Association would send a team to investigate the cause of the event, and those Hunters would detect and pinpoint the origin of any man-made incendiaries in the area. A national government had to know this. Every country knew that if you ceded land to the Hunter Association, there was no getting it back until the Association chose to give it back. It wasn’t something that could be forced unless the entire V6 supported it, and the V6 wouldn’t grant the basin back to a country that had actively destroyed its ecosystem.

The weight of the botany book pressed heavily on Kurapika’s lap, making him feel too warm beneath the blankets directly underneath it. The book never stopped tilting to the side, threatening to slip one way or the other onto the bed with every miniscule movement Kurapika made while reading. He held it in place with a weak grip and regretted not having asked Dr. Costu for something to hold the book up for him. Simple actions, like nudging the book back into place and turning its broad pages without having the book fall from his lap right after, exhausted Kurapika in his weakened state. His eyes also  felt the strain of reading much quicker, their lids creeping further and further down with each line of tidy, technical description devoid any feeling or enthusiasm that would’ve made the book moderately engaging and less of an absolute chore.

Distractedly, Kurapika wondered whether he was reading to learn more about the basin, or to lull himself to sleep. In sleep he could clear his mind, recalibrate, and recover. Every hour asleep was an hour without the unsettlingly persistent pain in his chest and throat. It was also an hour blissfully free from the scrutinizing gaze of the lake, which still passed over him from time to time as he lay immobilized in the infirmary bed. 

Less than thirty minutes passed before Kurapika inevitably lost the battle with his exhaustion. He allowed the book fall without resistance from his lap, and it shut itself beneath its own weight. Too late, Kurapika remembered, far away in the back of his mind that he’d forgot to mark his place. He let the spike of annoyance pass through him and then fade before slumping to the side just as the book had, fast asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the next few chapters, this fic will sincerely dive into stuff related to its tagged warnings, so, please, if you haven’t read those, make sure you do. 
> 
> Funnily enough, the bit about Kurta lifespans being long was included in the original five chapters of this fic that I wrote like 3 years ago, long before we ever even knew about Emperor Time’s newest, hottest restriction of summer 2017. 
> 
> God I Wish it were canon.


	6. Rare Human

Kurapika paced the hall outside Dr. Morro’s quarters, unable to conceal his frustration after four full days without any sign of the man.

In the first two days, Kurapika had chalked the missed connection up to a lack of a sincere effort on his own part. Though he’d been freed from the infirmary, he’d still been recuperating from the last of his injuries and couldn’t do much besides study to pass the time. The thought of meeting with Dr. Morro had come to him as more of an excuse to take a break. Kurapika had questions about the explosion that’d nearly killed him, and Dr. Costu wasn’t much help when all he did was remind Kurapika he wasn’t a botanist and suggest Kurapika study the matter some more on his own. 

In addition to discussing the explosion, Kurapika and Dr. Morro also needed to go over several minor housekeeping matters concerning the finer details of Kurapika’s role in the station, as well as whether or not the office down the hall from his room could be put online so he could contact the Hunter Association with updates on his mission. Dr. Costu’s own computer in the doctor’s office wasn’t online, either, but it didn’t seem to bother him, as all he did was shrug and administer medications without giving a damn about where he was or what the original purpose of his mission at the station had been, back before he and Dr. Morro had converted the place into a hermitage for themselves away from their responsibilities in the real world.

After the first two days of failing to run into Dr. Morro, Kurapika had begun to make more of a sincere effort. He’d schedule himself to be in the hall outside Dr. Morro’s quarters at all the appropriate times—morning, evening, and afternoon—when he’d imagined Dr. Morro would need a break for a shower or to rest. Dr. Morro had to keep his hygiene up somehow; Kurapika didn’t recall him looking slovenly when they’d been introduced. And yet, it seemed more and more that the man never left the control room, not even to shit. When Kurapika had, in desperation, confronted Dr. Costu with questions of how Dr. Morro even sustained himself cooped up with his monitors and computer consoles every day, Dr. Costu had shrugged as always and then confessed that he and Dr. Morro didn’t interact, so, he wasn’t sure. The last time they’d communicated directly was when Dr. Morro had sent him a message notifying him of the arrival of a new Hunter to the station. That was it. There wasn’t any long-standing animosity between them, nothing like that, but rather, there was an immense gulf of absolute indifference. Upon hearing this, Kurapika had told Dr. Costu it was the most ridiculous thing anyone had ever said to him, and he’d stormed out of the infirmary gritting his teeth and holding back the sort of loud, exasperated tirade he’d previously only considered Leorio to be capable of in moments of frustration.

Now, for the fifth time in two hours after four days of trying, Kurapika marched into the curved hall encircling the control room. He tried a random, unlabeled passcode Dr. Costu had found in his desk drawer and brought to him, but to no avail. No sounds of movement came from behind the door when he hammered his fist against it angrily, ordering Dr. Morro to permit him to enter. He reminded Dr. Morro again that they’d planned a meeting to discuss Kurapika’s work, since he couldn’t be expected to wander around the woods searching pathetically for video cameras and surveillance equipment on his own. He needed a map, supplies, instructions, and a schedule. Without those things, Kurapika was merely living here, like a guest in a hotel or, more aptly, a prisoner.

Kurapika departed without results, but returned fifteen minutes later with a letter and a roll of paper tape from the infirmary. Feeling like a fool, he located one of the security cameras monitoring the hall outside the control room door and began to wave his arms in front of it, brandishing a spare lab coat like a flag. He didn’t know if security in the station was wired to pick up sound. He didn’t know if Dr. Morro had even heard him shouting through the door all this time. For good measure, he kicked the door and hit it a few times with the heavy ball of his dowsing chain. Then, he tossed the coat aside and held up the paper and the roll of tape.

“I’m leaving a list at the door,” said Kurapika, brushing off the niggling feeling that he was announcing this to absolutely no-one. “I’m affixing it here, and then, I’m leaving. I will return in three hours.” He held up a panel of cardboard that said “THREE HOURS” while pantomiming gestures for leaving and coming back. “Watch me in the station’s cameras if you want. This list is what I need from you. I hope you will address it in a timely manner.”

After this, Kurapika continued down the hall and repeated the same procedure in front of all three doors he knew led into the control room. He affixed a copy of his list to each one and departed as promised, back to the office near his quarters, which he was using to collect and store all the materials he wanted to convert into digital form and submit to the Association.

Almost as soon as he’d sat at his desk and switched on the computer, Kurapika wanted to take another break. He sighed and leaned back in his swivel chair, his eyes roaming over the shelves he’d scavenged from an empty lab the day before. They weren’t full yet, but then, he’d only just begun his work. He had no idea how long his self-appointed mission to update the world biological database would take. He might have to do field work and run experiments to verify the twelve-year-old information he was using, even if someone as meticulous and dedicated as a fellow Hunter had been the one to gather it all originally. It was the kind of work that could easily take years, he supposed. Maybe the Association would even send a team. Kurapika was a Blacklist Hunter, not a scientist. There was no way he’d be entrusted to run a full biological survey on his own. He wouldn’t know where to start.

His other option was to keep his head down and repair cameras, to subject himself entirely to the whims of an eccentric who wouldn’t leave the control room and wouldn’t let anyone in to see him. Kurapika wasn’t sure how sustainable that scenario would be. He wasn’t an electrician any more than he was a scientist. No matter which route he chose, he couldn’t win. He was in a place he had no business being, and was positive that if he simply threw his hands in the air and gave up on doing any sort of work whatsoever, neither Dr. Morro nor Dr. Costu would notice or care.

This thought, as it crossed his mind, disturbed Kurapika. It meant the worst, of course; it meant he was on his own. He was stranded and didn’t have any idea what to do out there by himself.

What Kurapika wanted most was to call someone he knew. He wanted a sample of something familiar, because nothing within or beyond the shell of a research station presiding over a forest of vividly hued death bore a single welcoming trait. He didn’t belong here, and it wasn’t only a question of his professional qualifications. No human belonged in this place. The creator of it all in the guise of a lake had built up its garden from the basin floor without once taking mankind into consideration. Nothing here was intended for humanity to share or explore, and yet the inquisitive nature of humanity had driven them into the heart of it all anyway to fell trees for paths and clear a space upon its most striking natural vantage point and build a research station, giving the illusion that the basin and its lake had been conquered for mankind.

The fundamental error was assuming the basin had been conquered at all. There had never been anything to conquer, no resistance. It was the arrogance of humanity to see an untamed wilderness fighting against them when they should’ve seen a place as welcoming as the crater of an active volcano. Sentient or not, there was no record of Lake Solaris striking back or antagonizing the people living along the outfacing mountain slopes. The world beyond was of no interest to the lake as tended its mysterious garden and thrived, entirely on its own.

The more he researched the basin’s ecology, the more Kurapika was convinced the explosion he’d witnessed couldn’t have been caused by a plant. Nothing growing within the basin had a reason to explode so destructively, either for defense or reproduction. Most varieties of plant life spread through runners or rootstalks, mirroring the tunnels and knots of the underground capillary system fed by a deep aquifer below the lake. Seed dispersal was rare and limited to the immediate area surrounding the propagating plant. A few varieties of stinking mushroom utilized native insects to disperse spores, but that seemed to be it for anything airborne. Kurapika had yet to find any further examples of the forcible ejection of reproductive material, much less any hint of a plant specimen that could grow large enough to shake the ground and create a flash of light when it burst.

That said, there were still two and a half volumes left for Kurapika to comb through on the subject. Maybe better information was waiting somewhere up ahead. All Kurapika could do was slog on, recording data as he went, hoping to find the answer. What drove him more than the flimsy notion of being on an unofficial mission to update the world biological database was his persistent need for an explanation as to why he’d nearly died up on the roof the same day he’d arrived to the station.

With a sigh, Kurapika pull himself back from his wandering thoughts and hit a key to wake up the idling computer. According to the clock at the corner of the screen, he had two hours and fifteen minutes left to wait. He groaned and glanced at the book laying open expectantly on the desk near his elbow. In two more hours, he hoped, Dr. Morro would give him something. At this point, he’d take anything, anything but rotting here, forgotten, alone, and unprepared, sorting through books and files and endless streams of information no-one in the world cared about, not even Kurapika himself.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Success at last, or at least a form of it. Kurapika’s ridiculous pantomime had reward him with an itinerary, two instruction manuals on the repair and maintenance of the research instruments he’d be working on, and a memo announcing that every office in the dormitory block he was using would be online by seven that evening, apologies for the wait, it was something that really should’ve been arranged before he’d arrived.

In regards to the subject bearing most heavily on Kurapika’s mind, the explosion, there was only a short paragraph, written in the tone of an afterthought. In it, Dr. Morro briefly speculated that there’d been either a exploding gun smoke mushroom of a tremendous size previously unrecorded, or else the lake itself had decided to blow a hole in the cliffside for a mysterious reason only it could know. If Kurapika would look up the following books (here went a list of titles, few of which Kurapika recognized), he’d see that the lake was known for a variety of inexplicable phenomena, some of which manifested physically in patterns on the water’s surface, and others in elusive, shifting shapes that were occasionally seen moving through the woods. At times, these shapes were destructive in ways reminiscent of ball lightning, while at other times they bobbed about serene, like bumbling insects. The ancient people who’d inhabited the mountains and hills surrounding the Solaris Basin had believed the land was filled with ghosts of various sorts, wandering down secret paths through the woods on the way to the underworld. In many ways, it seemed, the area remained as much of an enigma now as it’d been a thousand years ago. In regards to that, Kurapika would do good to study the area a bit more in depth before he went about composing letters with accusatory statements about sudden explosions, as if Dr. Morro knew something he didn’t, when frankly, they were all in the same boat together, them and all the people in human history who’d ever looked at the lake and struggled to answer the question as to why said lake ever chose to do absolutely anything at all.

Luckily for Dr. Morro, Kurapika wasn’t easily riled by an arrogant man’s disdainful tone on paper. As he read the note, he felt only a mild twinge of annoyance at the childishness of such a response, considering how Dr. Morro had been the one to confine himself to the control room for four full days without answering the door. Saving only the book titles, which he copied down on another piece of paper, Kurapika tore the letter up and threw it away without a second glance.

Currently, it was just past seven in the evening. To pass the time waiting for the internet to start working, Kurapika spent over an hour typing up a report relaying his observations of the station since he'd arrival. As it got closer to seven, he paused with greater frequency to sip from a cup of thin soup laden with rehydrated vegetable bits he couldn’t identify. After every few lines, he’d glanced at the upper right corner of the screen, waiting for the network symbol to light up and indicate he was connected. The wait was making him impatient, and at the same time, apprehensive. He hadn’t had an update on his legal situation since he’d departed the kiriko home outside Zaban on his way to the Solaris Basin. By now, it’d been over a month and a half.

With a faint flicker like an insect alighting on the screen, the network symbol came to life. A minute and a half later, a connection was fully established. Kurapika lost track of the sentence he was composing as a surge of relief rushed through him. He reminded himself coolly that he’d have to wait another hour due to the time difference, and then, finally, he could attempt to contact Mizaistom.

“Finish this,” he muttered to himself as he filled out the report, barely able to focus long enough to hit the keys in the right order to type a single word. “First this. No rushing. Plenty of time. Let’s go.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


“There are some notable benefits to you in your situation if the Kuruta are classified as humanoid beasts. The demand for your eyes, for example, will be reduced on the human flesh market, since you will no longer count as a rare human. In addition, as a magical beast, you’ll receive support and even protection from many powerful Hunters invested in the welfare of rare and magical creatures. Whoever is hunting you will lose a significant amount of support, since they’ve galvanized their supporters within the Association itself under the banner of reform of our current classification standards for human beings. It’s an understood fact, unfortunate as it may be, that many of our Hunter comrades care significantly more for the welfare of beasts than of fellow humans.”

“Yes, good,” said Kurapika dully. “I can become like the last living menoceras in the Susina Zoo, guarded day and night by a team of Hunters in case anyone tries to poach me.” Immediately, Mizaistom tried to interject, but Kurapika spoke over him. “Or, I can live out my life in seclusion like a kiriko, except a kiriko has the option to put on a human face whenever it wishes to mingle with our society. I’ll always look like me, though.”

“It’s too early to talk like that,” said Mizaistom, fixing a stern gaze directly into the camera lens of his desktop computer. “I’m not saying any of this has been decided yet. I’m not even saying it’s ever going to happen. I’m just making sure you’re aware of the pros and cons to every potential outcome as the case has developed so far. I promise you, however, that I will refuse to accept any bargain requiring the reclassification of the Kuruta as magical beasts. You can trust me on that. But, at the same time, I don’t get to make the final decision. The Association decides.”

“And how long will it be until they decide?” asked Kurapika. “What can I do, if anything, to push this along while I’m stuck hiding out? I don’t want to call the Solaris Basin my home for the next three years.”

“It’s too soon to know how long,” said Mizaistom. “This isn’t a criminal case; no-one is prosecuting you personally for anything you’ve done, so, it’s doubtful you’re in much of a position to really ‘push the case along’ yourself. I told you, since you went into hiding, the case has expanded to include a reassessment of nearly every humanoid beast, rare human, and ‘special tribe’ worldwide. It’s clear that whoever’s pulling the strings wants to draw the proceedings out, to force you to grow impatient and act first.”

“What does it mean for me?”

“It means that, as of now, we’re all forced to argue like this is an honest debate on who does and who doesn’t deserve to be granted the legal rights of full humans within human society. The fact that you’re the sole survivor of your tribe and personally think of yourself as human may be considered to a degree when the judges have to reach a decision concerning the Kuruta in particular. However, in terms of the much larger discussion now underway, your personal classification is one among many others being decided, which mean your personal stance matters less and less.”

Despite having kept his expression perfectly blank so far, Kurapika wordlessly choked on what he wanted to say next. He picked up the cup of soup next to the computer, but it was empty, and he dreaded stepping away to refill it with water. Leaving the room would remind him where he was, that he was trapped, and that seeing Mizaistom’s familiar face was somehow both the best and worst thing that had happened to him since he’d nearly died on the roof.

Mizaistom took Kurapika’s silence as a pause for further explanation. “Try to see it more in a way that, although you obviously consider yourself to be human, you could just as easily consider yourself to be non-human. Therefore, how you perceive yourself, which is personal to you, isn’t the deciding factor in how the law itself ultimately decides how you ought to be perceived from a legal standpoint. The larger debate right now isn’t a matter of you specifically, but rather, you generally, as a rare human with distinctive physical traits.”

“And so, while this debatable concept of me takes precedence over the reality of me, I’m stuck sitting here trying not to get hunted in the meantime. I can’t do anything about it at all. I’m powerless to whatever they decide.”

“Involving you in the case, letting you give testimony, while sure to strengthen my argument on your more than evident humanity later on down the road, is too much of a risk right now. The court will need to examine you, and you yourself told me you have no intention of revealing your identity to anyone or demonstrating the abilities granted to you by your Scarlet Eyes. I agree, and I strongly suspect whoever’s looking for you wants an examination to take place, since a detailed testimony will give them every piece of information they might need to hunt you down. Then, they’ll find you, and you’ll probably end up dead, and the debate about whether you were human in the first place will continue on without you.”

“So, I wait.”

“You wait, yes. I need time to conduct my other investigation into where this problem originated. On your end, you’ll need to keep being patient. This is likely to take many more months. The investigation into your human status in particular, which kick-started this entire debate, is ongoing, and without access to a Kuruta clansman to facilitate study, it’s bound to be a rather protracted process.”

“Don’t worry, I’m patient. I know how,” said Kurapika with a bitter edge to his voice. “I’ll wait patiently, and then, I’ll wake up one day either a human and a Hunter still, or a beast and the sort of thing Hunters vow to either protect or hunt down.”

Without missing a beat, Mizaistom recited all the necessary condolences perfectly. His face, however, remained impassive. He was either practicing immense self-control, or he didn’t give a damn. Kurapika’s mood made Kurapika more inclined to believe the later.

“I regret that you’ve been put in this situation, and I wish there were more that could be done at the present time. You have always been a valuable member of the Association and have always contributed a great deal in ensuring we achieve our ends as an organization. I sincerely hope this case will resolve in your favor, and that you will be permitted to retain your current human classification. I will do my very best to ensure this outcome until the very end, and I will appeal any ruling that removes you from your status as either a Hunter or a human being or both.”

“I know,” said Kurapika, not especially grateful for the sentiment, though he knew Mizaistom was making a genuine effort in his own wanting, overly professional way. “I understand completely.”

Kurapika got up, at last taking a minute to rinse and refill his cup in the bathroom sink next door. The station, as always, was quiet and still. He felt as if he were the only one there. Dimly, he almost believed it.

“How has it been settling in?” asked Mizaistom when Kurapika came back. “You seem to be on edge. Are you managing well, or…?”

“It’s…a stressful environment,” said Kurapika. There was no point lying about that much to Mizaistom. Mizaistom knew and expected it, and Kurapika didn’t have the energy to hide anything so obvious. “I suffered some contact with poisonous plant life after I first arrived. It should be noted that the paths here haven’t been kept up by the local government. The way was more difficult than I’d anticipated. If the Association plans to move into this area in the future, it’s important to update the status of the terrain in our database.”

“Um-hm,” said Mizaistom, noting this down on a pad of paper just out of view of the camera. “When you say ‘contact,’ do you mean you were injured?”

“Yes, but as you can see, I made it out in one piece.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Mizaistom. “I hope you made sure to notify the station’s medical officer right away, even if there wasn’t a significant exposure, in order to rule out any lasting damage you may have sustained that you might not have been aware of. He’d know that better than you would.”

“He’s aware,” said Kurapika. Mizaistom caught the evasive tone immediately.

“Kurapika,” he said. “I don’t need to remind you that if you die, every chance of weeding out the current source of corruption within the Association will be lost. Have you been receiving adequate treatment from the medical officer at the station since your exposure?”

“Yes. Look at me. I’m perfectly fine. I’m just tired. It’s late here already.”

“Understood,” said Mizaistom. He might’ve understood Kurapika, but he also didn’t trust him. “I think you should call Leorio, anyway. He’s the best, and also, he knows your condition better than anyone else would. One moment, and I’ll try to connect him through Q.”

“He’ll probably be too busy to answer,” said Kurapika, but Mizaistom didn’t hear him. The video call was put on hold as he switched over to using Q on the same device. Now, instead of Mizaistom’s comfortingly familiar face, Kurapika was staring at a blurred and muted screen. He shifted in his seat impatiently as he waited.

“It’s seems Dr. Paladiknight is busy at the present time, which is understandable,” said Mizaistom upon returning to the call. “In this instance, I would suggest against sending him a written report, since his files may be monitored. We’ve found evidence of many individuals, Hunter and civilian alike, being spied upon, starting sometime in the past few weeks. Each individual had either taken the 287th Hunter Exam or a subsequent exam. Clearly, it’s got out that you qualified as a Hunter sometime following the 287th Exam. Whoever is hunting you is hoping you’ve kept in contact with your fellow examinees, or that you might reach out to them as the search for you gains momentum.”

“So, then, if I can’t send a medical report, what should I do?”

“Record a message. I’ll see that he receives it here, in a secure location where it won’t get out. If he has any suggestions on further treatment, I’ll relay them to you myself.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll put you on another line now, okay? It’ll sound like an answering machine, but don’t worry about leaving something quick before running out time. Go into as much detail as you think you’ll need to. Share whatever might be pertinent. It won’t stop recording until you hang up.”

“Okay.”

“Alright. I’ll count you down before the call switches over.”

“Okay. I’m ready.”

“Okay. Three…two…one….”

There was muffled click followed by a pinging sound. A second later, the line began to ring, as if Kurapika’s call had been redialed. In the middle of the third ring, it cut off and there was the classic, rather silly beep of a machine picking up. Kurapika cleared his throat and brought his microphone down closer, so he could read the medical report he’d written off the screen of a tablet where he had it open.

“Um, hello,” he started, keeping his voice even, his manner robotic. Even his face froze to submerge him further in the role. “I won’t state my name, you should know who I am. I’m assuming Mizaistom will have explained the circumstances to you. As I mentioned to him already, there was an incident of—actually quite significant—exposure when I first arrived to the station several days ago. The full nature of what caused the incident to occur has yet to be revealed to me, but Dr. Morro, who’s in charge here, has considered the case himself, and, through his greater expertise on the basin and its flora, suggested an exploding mushroom, specifically a gun smoke mushroom, as the culprit.”

Kurapika, who’d been moving along fairly quickly through the short introduction, hesitated at this point. He took an extra moment to read over his description of the force and far reach of the explosion, his best independent guesses as to its cause, and his paranoid speculations that he wasn’t being told the full truth. No such information had any place in a medical report. He couldn’t remember why he’d written it down. For an instant, he vividly recalled Leorio’s suffering expression as he grumbled over the danger Kurapika would face being sent to the Solaris Basin on such short notice. If there were some sort of conspiracy going on in addition to the already obvious dangers Leorio knew, then maybe….

Kurapika stopped himself from speculating any further on that point. He didn’t want to imagine how Leorio would react. He didn’t want to imagine how Leorio would feel after learning that he’d been right all along and Kurapika, in avoiding one threat to his life, had leapt into a whole maze of multiple threats winding down to the same ghastly end, just like how the half-choked paths circumventing the basin all somehow wound their way down, inextricably, to the shores of the placid, waiting lake.

“What happened,” started Kurapika, scanning over the report and trying to find the place where the medically relevant details resumed. “It was sort of…wasn’t…well…it’s fine. The important thing is I’m fine. Ehem. But, I, uh, what is most relevant is that I had to use _that_ ability. It was my only option to survive. Again, it was an extremely significant exposure.”

Kurapika gripped the tablet tighter and pressed on. The hard part, admitting to Leorio indirectly that the worst possible scenario had indeed transpired, and within a single day of arriving no less, was over. Now, all that was left was to get the accounting out of the way.

“I can’t forward you the full report I drafted, so, I’m just going to read off the pertinent information I have here. Traditional treatment, injections, etc were prioritized whenever possible, but the irreparable nature of much of the damage sustained required alternate methods. My estimation is that I was first in _that_ state for maybe twelve minutes, but a highball estimate would be closer to twenty. Once stabilized, I worked with the medical professional here and was able to undergo subsequent, vital treatment in intervals of two minutes every hour, totaling sixteen minutes exactly, before reducing treatment to ten seconds at intervals of twice a day for three more days, equaling a full minute overall. Treatment resulted in a gross loss of 29 or 37 full minutes, coming out to 1,740 or 2,220 seconds, the equivalent hours of which come to 72.5 days or 92.5 days, respectively.”

The urge to stop what he was saying and apologize instead swelled within Kurapika as he recited numbers in an outwardly bored, faraway voice that offered only the facts and none of his opinions about them. It certainly wasn’t the worst damage he’d ever done to himself while using Emperor Time. However, Leorio was of the mind that any second wasted and its corresponding hour of life were far too great a cost in nearly every instance where the ability could be used. Generally, Kurapika was inclined to agree with him, especially now that he’d retired from his more dangerous work and rarely needed to use the combat ability he’d developed such a restriction in order to strengthen.

“Dr. Costu, the medical officer here, has compiled a list of the plant specimens he believes I was most affected by due to my symptoms and the area where the incident occurred. There are 63 in total. Starting from the highest toxin concentration found in lab results and working down, they constitute the following….”

It took nearly ten whole minutes to recite the list. Kurapika guessed at the pronunciation of chemical names and medical terminology he was unfamiliar with, assuming Leorio would be able to deduce what they were on his own. Once he reached the end, he gave a short, innocuous closing statement about his current condition and signed off from the call. A few seconds later, there was another call coming in, and his heart nearly stopped.

“Hey—hello?” stammered Kurapika weakly as he answered.

“Are you okay?” asked the caller. Kurapika let out a sigh of relief at the sound of Mizaistom’s voice and the flickering image of his square, black and white patched face appearing on the screen. Kurapika wasn’t sure why, but for a few seconds some nonsensical part of him had assumed it was Leorio calling him, and he’d panicked.

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t expect you to call back.”

“I wouldn’t have,” said Mizaistom. “But I’ve reflected on what you said about experiencing a medical emergency since arriving, and I just wanted to say I’m sorry for that. Maybe it’s because Leorio keeps getting on my case for this, but I want you to know that I do feel responsible, and I do regret the measures that have had to be taken, and I hope that you won’t find yourself in a similar situation again.”

This time around, Mizaistom didn’t hold back, allowing the concern he felt to show openly on his face. He’d been giving Kurapika the professional treatment as a client instead of as a friend, but had realized in the interim that this approach won him nothing. Ideally, Mizaistom wouldn’t defend someone he knew as well as Kurapika. But, Mizaistom was also the best lawyer available in the entire Association, and he wouldn’t deny Kurapika access to the best professional help because they were close.

“Thanks,” said Kurapika. His stomach felt sick, still in knots from the recording and then the fright he’d suffered when Mizaistom had called back. “I’ll manage. I’m from a forested region. I grew up in the woods. I’ll be smart. It’ll be fine.”

“I trust you will be, but I want to make sure you know I’m not happy about this. Leorio talks like I don’t actually possess any personal stake in your well-being, but—”

“Leorio is like that because he’s concerned and can’t really do anything himself,” Kurapika assured him. “He knows you can take it, so he blames you. It’s not personal. I know what it’s like when he complains. Don’t worry. I trust you’re acting in my best interests. What Leorio says to let off steam doesn’t undermine my faith in you or what you’re doing.”

“I don’t mean about that. What he says doesn’t affect me. You’re right that I can take it.” Mizaistom cleared his throat. “I mean I really hope you’re okay. I’ll try to find somewhere else for you to go as soon as I’m sure what measures the people we are up against are taking to find you. Once they slip up, once I uncover the source, I can neutralize it. I can stanch the flow of information from the inside, and then, I’ll be in a better position to guarantee your safety without the hassle of hiding you from the Association itself.”

“I understand that. I do,” said Kurapika. “I do,” he repeated uselessly. He was tired. Every minute he spent in this conversation reminded that he wasn’t as alone as he felt out here. It also made him more desperate to leave. The prospect of staying at the station for months on end, maybe even a full year, was more unbearable than ever.

“I need to go,” said Kurapika. “I’ll begin work in a few days, and I need to review the repairs I’ll be expect to make to the equipment they have outside. It’s not something I’ll be able to refer back to a lot when I’m already out there. I can only take as much as I can carry.”

“Certainly,” said Mizaistom. He sat a little straighter and cleared his throat again. “Don’t let me keep you too long. I just wanted to inform you of the state of things. I just wanted you to have an idea.”

“Yes,” said Kurapika. “Thank you. I know.”

Mizaistom’s desire to express more hadn’t petered out, but Kurapika had already started the goodbye script between them. If Mizaistom couldn’t think of anything to add quick, then he wasn’t going to be able to add anything at all before the call ended.

“I’m sorry, and again, I apologize,” was the best Mizaistom could come up. Kurapika thanked him again. Then, since there was nothing else, he ended the call.

Instead of studying as he’d said he needed to, Kurapika went to bed and slept. The mental intrusions of the lake didn’t bother him as much as the tightened feeling in his chest. He sighed deeply once, twice, several times, but nothing could dislodge the heavy feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, since I was supposed to be on vacation other than what I’m doing now (decidedly not a vacation), I had up to chapter seven lined up as chapter drafts on this site. If I finish proofreading up to that point, then we’ll have to wait until maybe closer to July for updates to continue, unless I miraculously find the time and energy to move chapters onto ao3 using just my phone. I probably won’t find the time or energy, tho. I’m suddenly in a situation where time and energy are in short supply


	7. The Basin

It was odd, the sensation of letting the oily, glistening foliage of the basin graze him as he passed. The poison couldn’t reach Kurapika anymore. It was blocked by the protective outer layer of the coveralls he’d had to wrap and tighten with tape to bring down to size. The original trekking clothes, goggles, and particle filtration mask he’d arrived to the station wearing couldn’t contend with the specialized gear used by the station’s own scientists. Before he’d set out, Dr. Costu had coached him on his worksuit’s properties, going over things like how much contact and what sort of activities it could handle. He’d announced proudly that it was the best protection available in the world, but had then added with a sigh that nothing was perfect, and that the respirator and face mask always got warm and damp to the point of being uncomfortable after a only few minutes of use. Dr. Costu had also explained that during high pollen season, when the number of moths and airborne particles rose, a heavier, more cumbersome suit was necessary. The heavier suit was impractical for fieldwork, and was only kept for rare instances when critical repairs needed to be done outside in the worst conditions. Luckily for Kurapika, the high pollen season had already ended, and he could roam about in relative freedom wherever he wanted. He just had to make sure to avoid explosions. The suit wouldn’t save him from a bomb. 

The poorly defined paths through the woods were more of an annoyance than a major ecumbrance now that the risk of touching anything had been reduced. Glancing down at the laminated map taped to this arm, Kurapika veered west to scale the short slope of a rising ridge. This would put him several meters out of the way towards his destination, but the eastern side of the ridge was too steep to climb safely further up. At its highest point, his path would take him to the edge of sheer cliff, whose wide, striated gray and white face he’d spotted many times from the station windows. It was called The Slice, Dr. Costu had told him, because, although it wasn’t especially tall for a cliff, it looked as if someone had taken a hot knife and lopped half the land away at that point, leaving behind a smooth, straight and distinctive surface that shimmered whenever light struck it at just the right angle.

At the top of The Slice, mounted on a metal pole, was the first video camera Kurapika needed to repair. This camera held the highest priority on Dr. Morro’s list, since its view of the lake was nearest to the shoreline. Repairing it was Kurapika’s only set objective for the day. Dr. Costu had estimated it’d take him two hours reach the top of The Slice, since he’d have to make his own way through overgrown paths. Once he arrived, the amount of repairs needed would determine how much time he’d be spending outside. If he couldn’t finish in a single day, he had to make sure to return to the station before dusk. The poisonous woods were perilous enough to navigate in full daylight. At night, they were lethal.

Dr. Costu hadn’t taken into account Kurapika’s agility and physical prowess as a professional Hunter, which meant Kurapika reached his destination forty-five minutes ahead of the two-hour estimate. Wooded terrain, when he was allowed to touch it directly, was Kurapika’s natural habitat. Whenever the path on the ground was choked off by more plants than he wanted to waste time cutting through, Kurapika changed tactics and hopped up into the trees to move between the branches. Sometimes, depending on the tree, this could be slower, since he had to move cautiously so high up, and his poorly adjusted suit snagged. He’d been assured it wouldn’t tear, even if he cut it with his knife or slipped and slid down a stony ridge, but that assurance didn’t stop the gut-wrenching feeling that shot through him every time he took a step forward and felt his sleeve held back by a bramble caught in the wrinkles of fabric bunched around the bands of tape on his arm.

Kurapika dropped the workbag that held his toolkit and replacement parts for the camera onto the ground at the foot of the pole. From the bag, he removed a harness. He put it on, along with the rest of the climbing gear, and slung the workbag back over his shoulders to begin his ascent. Protruding metal bars served as rungs going up the pole, making it much easier to climb that the trees he’d leapt through on his way up The Slice. Once he reached the camera, Kurapika twisted around to relocate the mouth of his workbag. The surface of the lake over his shoulder caught him off guard as it burst into view, as sudden and terrifying as if it’d been hiding in wait for him. Kurapika couldn’t help turning his head all the way to face it and take it in, feeling at once mesmerized, uncertain, and far too exposed high atop his current perch.

The water of the lake was dark today, churning like a stormy, wintery sea. At his current angle, Kurapika could see the water’s true face and somehow understood the impossible supposition he’d read in more fantastical accounts that the lake was really an ocean held within a lake. If someone dared to set out upon it in a boat, it would carry that person away to a land that existed days and weeks past the horizon, hidden behind a curtain of oily froth dredged up from flooded caverns and tunnels bifurcating outwards, underground, in endless ropes like the branches of dendritic cells.

His gaze was drawn, as always whenever he looked out the windows of the station, towards the destroyed cliff side at the southwestern end of the lake. Here the water’s edge was jagged, littered with boulders and plant debris. One of the lake’s subterranean capillaries had ruptured further up, creating a thin waterfall that fell back into the lake in a wobbling stream. The ripple of water hitting the lake’s surface disturbed the swirling lines of the waves rising to embrace the shoreline, heavy and even like a pulse.

Kurapika wasn’t all that far from the explosion site, now. Looking down at it, he was more convinced it was impossible for any sort of mushroom to achieved such destruction. A small voice in the back of his mind, whispering to him since the moment he’d found out how close today’s job would bring him to the site, urged him to go down and investigate. There was simply no way, it told him, that a mere mushroom, no matter how monstrous in size, could _ever_ ….

Kurapika blinked rapidly and shook his head hard. He forced himself to turn away, to re-focus. The repair job would take some time and require him to constantly refer back to the handful of diagrams and instructions he’d brought along to make up for his amateur understanding of electronics. He sighed. The heat of the direct sun bore down on him as he sluggishly removed the camera’s protective case. It was a challenge to stay on-task. The longer he sat in the sun, the more he was enveloped in a personal fog of sweaty vapor trapped inside his worksuit. Just as Dr. Costu had warned him, he felt half-drowned by the wet breaths moistening his face beneath his mask. The ambient sound beyond his own breathing, amplified by the quiet of the woods, pressed in with a static hum. Duller and further off, the lake splashed and tossed within the bowl of the basin, watching with expectant eagerness like a child. What could it possibly be waiting for, he wondered? Perhaps he could fall, pass out from heat exhaustion and tumble off the cliff. Wouldn’t that be something? Wouldn’t that be a neat change of pace? A novel development? Perhaps it was worth waiting for.

Kurapika fumbled through the rest of the repairs. Relief flooded through him as the lights on the front of the camera came to life when he plugged it back in. A moment later, the lens re-focussed itself and scanned the horizon. He shut the protective case back in place and lowered himself out of the camera’s path as it rotated 180 degrees, then back and forth, then a full 360. Kurapika reached up and waved a screwdriver in its line of sight, and it paused. When he lowered the screwdriver, the movement resumed. As far as Kurapika could surmise, the camera was now operational and under Dr. Morro’s control. He’d check again with Dr. Morro when he returned to the station, just to make sure.

At the thought of returning to the station, Kurapika glanced down towards the mess of the explosion sight. He’d reached the camera early and repaired it in record time. Surely he could afford a quick side trip. Plenty of daylight remained, and it wasn’t as if he had any other work waiting for him back inside the station. It’d be quick.

Kurapika climbed back down the camera pole. Without a moment of hesitation, he left his toolkit and repair instructions at the foot of the pole and began to pick out the best way to his next destination.

The high point where he stood already sloped in the direction of the site. The map affixed to his arm indicated there’d once been a path that’d gone along the space where the land had fallen away. Another camera, now destroyed, had been mounted there, which had made it the closest piece of technology to the water’s edge that wasn’t one of many small, corroded probes left over from the days of the very first lakeside expeditions. These probes had been abandoned in place after researchers discovered the lake’s vapor and a mucous-like fungus that coated its shores were two of the most potent toxins in the entire basin. Only the most durable and well-sealed gear could deliver a human being to and from the shore unscathed, and none of that gear was practical to use anywhere, save for a small strip of sandy shore at the lake’s northeastern corner, so far away from the station that one couldn’t walk there, but had to be dropped in by air.

As long as Kurapika remained at the upper edge of the explosion site, at a safe distance from the precarious drop where the blown-apart cliff side tumbled away into the lake, he wouldn’t be at too much of a risk of encountering toxic vapor or fungi. For added security, he plucked a sprig from a bright blue, leathery plant that grew in abundance within the shore’s intermediary zone. The leaves served as a canary in a mine for underprepared human researchers, since they reacted with a vivid color change at the barest hint of toxic vapor rising up from the lake. A few other plants changed hue as well when the vapor touched them, but the sprig Kurapika now stopped to affix to the back of his glove was known for having the most pronounced change at the lowest concentrations.

He trekked a full twenty minutes nonstop through the stony underbrush. The vegetation began to thin as he got closer to the lake, and evidence of the explosion’s effect on the area began to show. One variety of tree bore several scarred, dusty spots of polluted resin dried into uneven, reflective chunks that bulged out from where the trunk had been hit by stones and debris. On another variety of tree, the resin had a deep amber tinge and dried in large, globular masses the size of tennis balls. On and around these trees, fine, iridescent flecks glittered in patches where tossed up sheets of the mucous-like fungus from the lake itself had landed. Kurapika made sure to avoid the densest concentrations, although he’d read the toxicity was greatly reduced once the fungus dried. The powdery crystals could degrade the integrity of his gear in a slower, more insidious manner than his knife or a tree branch could. When he got back to the station, he’d have to retire his now compromised worksuit, just in case it’d been overexposed.

By the time Kurapika reached the site, the exaggerated care he’d taken on the way down rendered him both physically and mentally exhausted. As always with the Solaris Basin, the cost of haste was too great to run the risk. He rested a moment in the shade of the trees, taking stock while sweat dripped down his back and caused him to shiver and squirm uncomfortably in his worksuit.

Before setting out to survey the damage, Kurapika attached the line of his climbing harness around the trunk of a sturdy tree. If the ground proved unstable and he fell into the lake, there’d be no-one to save him before he was pulled under or fatally poisoned. Only two people were recorded to have ever survive such falls. The first, a young technician who hadn’t even known how to swim, had stumbled into the water while performing maintenance on a probe. He’d washed up on one of the lake’s few rocky shores minutes later bearing no ill effects. Following this incident, however, the lake seemingly lost interest, and subsequent falls involved zero benevolent intervention. The only other person to ever survive falling into the lake had been one of the earliest known Hunters to study it. As they’d fallen, they’d protected their body with their own shielding Nen before reaching the water. Afterward, they’d stated they’d only made it thanks to the quick reaction of an assistant pulling them out before the exhaustion of maintaining their aura shield at such extreme levels drained them completely.

Kurapika couldn’t be certain if the precaution of tying himself off to a tree would actually prove useful, but he felt better having it in place. He checked the line twice before stepping out into the space cleared by the explosion. The lapping sounds of the lake’s churning and the splash of the small stream rejoining it were the only sounds to break the mortuary silence of the woods themselves. Within his suit, Kurapika’s quickened heartbeat and heavy breaths were magnified as his ears strained to pick up any noise whatsoever. He tightened his grip on the line and advanced with painstaking slowness, testing every step before committing his weight to it, prepared to spring back at the first crumble of ground giving away beneath him.

“Good,” he muttered to himself softly in his own language. He thought he heard an echo of the word far away, though that wouldn’t have been impossible. Either his ears were playing tricks on him, or the nearness of the lake itself was getting to him. There were endless accounts of researchers catching hints of movement in the corners of their eyes, despite the utter lack of a breeze or wildlife of any significant size. Others reported hearing footsteps and whispers. Even Kurapika’s hautily worded station manual mentioned such phenomena, but assured him researchers should treat these occurrences as a slight inconvenience and continue working. The sights and sounds didn’t preclude any danger unless one was already quite close to the lake. Hallucinations were a classic sign that the lake’s vapor level was rising.

Kurapika glanced down at the sprig affixed to his glove. He let out a small sigh of relief when he saw there’d been no change.

Although obvious signs of an explosive force where evident wherever Kurapika looked, it was difficult to perceive what might’ve been the explosion’s source. If a bomb had gone off, it’d left no trace, though Kurapika wasn’t entirely sure how to ascertain if it’d really been a mushroom, either. All he’d come up with while preparing for this trip was to take a few samples from the area under the assumption that residue from the explosion might remain on plants and other surfaces nearest to the blast. When he figured he’d gone far enough, he removed the vials and bags he’d brought along in a pouch and crouched down to survey the area for anything promising.

  
  


* * *

  
  


_ “How often is it that a mushroom of considerable size explodes?” he’d asked Dr. Costu while they’d worked together to outfit him properly before his mission outside. _

_ “What do you mean ‘of considerable size’?” _

_ “Or any mushroom. What sorts of exploding mushrooms are most common in this place, and are there any signs I need to know that might indicate their presence? I’d like to know so that I can avoid them.” _

_ “Ah, I see,” said Dr. Costu with a thoughtful nod. “Well, I’ve never seen any of the basin’s mushrooms firsthand, but, there’s always a small amount of spores in the air particle density measurements taken by the station’s filters. I imagine there might be a few mushrooms, in that case. Or ferns. I don’t know what they’d look like, though. I imagine they’d be normal looking. Mushroom-like.” _

_ “You imagine, but you don’t actually know? After five years here?” asked Kurapika, not concealing his obvious disdain at Dr. Costu’s lack of intellectual rigor. _

_ “Well, I’m sorry,” said Dr. Costu, dragging the words out. “Although treating you for exposure to absolutely everything was a nice refresher course on the most obscure specimens of the Solaris Basin deadly to humans, my working knowledge of these things is extremely limited. I arrived here for medical research. The life cycles of each and every variety of plant and what they look like hasn’t been much of an interest of mine. I’m more focused on the chemical properties of their active agents and how they affect the cells of the human body. But, as there’s been a shortage of active ingredients recently, research along that line has gone to the wayside, and my purely botanical knowledge has degraded even further from how limited it already was.” _

_ “There’s a shortage in materials?” asked Kurapika. “But…you’re surrounded by the entire basin.” _

_ “But the basin is dangerous. Samples have to be brought in, and, as you can presently see, preparation for a mission to collect them is a two-person job.” _

_ “So, Dr. Morro doesn’t….” _

_ “Ha! That would be the day.” _

_ “But aren’t there machines to…?” _

_ “Not anymore. I’ve managed to lose all of them some way or another over the past few years.” Dr. Costu didn’t even sound ashamed of himself. “You see, if a robot gets caught or it tumbles down into a ravine, there isn’t anyone who can run out there and pick it up for me.” _

_ “So, what do you even do here?” _

_ Dr. Costu shrugged, as he always did, eventually. “I pleasantly enjoy an awful lot of time to myself.” _

_ Kurapika sighed and told Dr. Costu to prepare him two additional lists for the next time he went out, one for the plants the doctor needed and another with the last known locations of the lost sample harvesting robots. Kurapika might as well go looking for them if he was going to be outside anyway. _

_ “What does…” Kurapika started to ask, but stopped. After a pause, he decided it would be better to know once and for all rather than keep on guessing. “What does Dr. Morro do? What is his job?” _

_ “He’s a mad scientist.” _

_ “Okay, but before that.” _

_ “He’s just the boss,” said Dr. Costu. He caught Kurapika’s disapproving look, and put a little more effort into his response. “I think maybe he was some sort of geographer, though he’s much more interested in the lake itself now than the landscape—and it’s not interest in the sense of a hydrologist, either. He’s obsessed with the lake as a thing. As its own entity. So, that’s all he does. He fixates on it. With your repairs, you’ll be getting him his missing eyes and instruments back, so, he’ll have even more to fixate on. That’s all.” _

_ “He does absolutely nothing, is what you mean?” _

_ “He does one thing. He watches.” _

_ “What’s he watching for?” _

_ Dr. Costu paused, letting his hands fall from where he’d been adjusting the position of the mask over Kurapika’s face, checking for gaps that would compromise the fit. _

_ “He’s not watching for anything that you or I could ever see,” said Dr. Costu quietly. He took a seat, his arms hanging loose at his sides. His expression was uncharacteristically severe. “It’s in his mind, you see. He was exposed to something I don’t know. Maybe he got into the water, something idiotic like that. He wasn’t able to explain exactly what happened, except that he thinks he saw something outside, and since then he’s been chasing it, safe in the control room.” Dr. Costu sighed, but gave up explaining more and shrugged. Kurapika wondered what Dr. Costu had just decided in the moment wasn’t worth the effort to say. “You know, he nearly died,” said Dr. Costu in afterthought. “I thought he was going to die. But, I thought you were going to die, too. Goes to show what I know.” _

_ “He had an accident?” _

_ “It wasn’t just him. The whole team got trapped someplace. Only he got out. He was held up, assisting Febiu who’d sprained his ankle. So, he didn’t get as far in as the others before whatever it was happened.” _

_ “Happened? Were they inside somewhere?” _

_ “I assume so. When you ask him to explain it, he loses coherency right away. I haven’t been able to figure out where they were. He came back alone after seventy-six hours outside, and he hasn’t left the station since. They were four setting out together. Three of them went missing. We tried to get a full account from him first thing when he showed up, but he just raved. Our report was very short. He said a lot, but he didn’t give us much we could use.” _

_ “We, as in you and?” _

_ “One of the botanists, Toquo. She hadn’t been here long. She was in training to replace Febiu. She was assisting me in the lab when everyone went out.” _

_ “Did the two of you go search for the missing team?” _

_ “Well, we did the best we could, but neither Toquo nor I had ever trained in traversing the basin alone, off the paths. To be fair, no-one is supposed to do that, but I guess the rules don’t apply to Hunters. You’re being sent out alone right now, but technically, an outside work team is supposed to be four people minimum, and the station itself must always have at least two people inside. You’re not supposed to have to leave anyone alone, which makes a group of three the most frustrating combination if anyone’s been incapacitated. In our case, Toquo and I could’ve gone out to search together as a pair, but, someone needed to monitor Morro. He went to sleep and didn’t wake up for four days. When he finally woke up, nothing he told us made sense, so, we stopped trying to get much out of him. You must understand that neither Toquo nor I were versed in dealing with psychotic breaks, and we didn’t want to cause him more harm or agitate him further. The second best thing we could do was monitor the cameras, try to see if anyone else was out there, or if anything about the basin outside had changed. That’s how Morro got started with watching the screens. He joined in, and he hasn’t stopped since. He claims he sees signs of the others. He used to call me over to show me and have me send my sample collecting robots out, but...it was nonsense. There was nothing there. Those people can’t have survived that long alone. He’s paranoid. He thinks they’re around and looking for him, especially Febiu, because Morro ran and left Febiu behind.” _

_ “He hallucinates and sees his lost team?” _

_ “Well, Febiu is the only one he’s ever named. He speaks in the plural about who he sees otherwise. ‘Them, they, all of them, they’re all…’.” _

_ “Have you yourself ever seen what he sees?” _

_ “No. Never. Of course not. He’s insane.” _

_ “Is it safe to keep him in the control room alone?” _

_ “He’s not a danger to anyone.” _

_ “What happened to Toquo?” _

_ “She quit and left.” _

_ “But you stayed. Why?” _

_ “I had the robots to help me with my work. For a while.” _

_ “And the Hunter who was here before me? Did he see anything like what Dr. Morro thinks he sees? Did anything outstanding happen to him?” _

_ “No. That guy sort of just got along too well with Morro. Got paranoid. After the Hunter left, I told Morro not to interact with the next Hunter if he was just going to fill the poor idiot’s head with delusions about wandering revenants or what have you. What we need most around here is someone who isn’t worried about going outside by themselves. That’s your entire job description, honestly: You go outside.” _

_ “Even though it’s technically against the rules.” _

_ Dr. Costu chuckled and shrugged. “Well, like I said. The rules don’t apply to Hunters.” _

  
  


* * *

  
  


Kurapika collected samples from every imaginable source, uncertain which surfaces would retain spores or evidence of combustion in significant concentrations. Periodically, he’d checked the sprig on his glove and imagined Dr. Morro, shrouded in a hallucinatory fog at the water’s edge, running from…something. Leaving everyone else behind. It was possible the Hunter who’d abandoned his post had suffered a significant exposure, as well. He’d claimed as much, along with endless other reasons for leaving. Far away in Swaldani City, safe inside the Hunter Association headquarters, it’d been impossible for anyone to take him seriously. 

Kurapika had no intention of sharing a similar fate. He re-checked the spring on his glove.

Something far away called out.

Again, a voice, an echo.

This time around, Kurapika hadn’t said a word. He paused as he bent to scoop a sample of soil, as close to the ledge now as he dared to go. Wide and open like the sky, the lake stretched before him, opposite to the close and waiting forest at his back. He activated his En on instinct, and the intensity with which absolutely nothing moved constricted him, tightening his chest until his racing heart felt too large for his ribcage. He held his breath and listened. An uncountable number of plants and trees and the monstrous Lake Solaris hemmed him in, and yet, there was nothing there. He was alone in the center of the world.

Slowly, cautiously, Kurapika stood. He refused to abandon his task. There was no threat out here he couldn’t or wouldn’t face. Hunters weren’t the type to run from the unknown. He turned around. His eyes scanned the tree line for signs of a foe he couldn’t locate with En. The color of the ground, which he’d missed when looking out on the site from the trees, drew his attention. Though he wasn’t an expert in incendiary devices or the traces they left behind, something about the color and smoothness of the blown away soil hinted to him that there’d been a fiery explosion. He recalled the flash of light heralding the deafening boom. Forgetting the illusions of strange voices he could still hear, he started towards the nearest singed-looking patch, fumbling with the plastic bag he’d removed to collect a sample.

Only a leap back on pure instinct kept Kurapika from stepping straight down into a crevice in the rock in his hurry. It was narrow and tight, but not closed enough to prevent him disappearing into it. He winced. The fall would’ve been brutal, knocked between jutting ledges and walls of rock into murky darkness. With care, Kurapika hopped over the crevice and went to collect his sample. His heart pounded painfully from the shock of such a near-miss. When he’d finished collecting a measure of soil, he turned and looked back. Drawn on by an impulse he couldn’t explain, he knelt alongside the crevice. He grasped the line affixed to his harness firmly, tugged on it to make sure it was well-affixed, and then slowly, curiously, leaned over and stared down.

The water of the lake rushed by below. He’d missed the sound of it due to the splashing of the nearby waterfall and the sloshing of the waves. There must’ve been an underground stream with a fierce current racing by beneath his feet. Part of its channel had been filled by the landside after the explosion, making the way narrower and increasing the pressure of the water as it flowed and pushed against the cavern walls. In a hundred years, the rock on the outfacing side of the crevice would probably slough off into the lake, cut by the stream like a slow knife. The thought made Kurapika anxious, as if instead of in a hundred years, it’d be in the next ten seconds.

A voice wormed its way up and out into the open again, searching for ears and minds to pry into. Within the darkness of the crevice, a shadow moved, slow and solid and incongruous with the rushing water. For a brief, bizarre second, Kurapika absolutely believed there was a person at the bottom, standing in the water as it cut around them. They were staring down at their hands, unaware of him. He knew there couldn’t be anyone, that it was more an image or feeling in his mind rather than something he truly saw, but he was compelled to call out anyway. If it were a hallucination, it couldn’t hurt him.

“Hello.”

It wasn’t Kurapika who’d spoken. He’d hardly taken a breath to speak. The same exact word died on his lips before he’d even formed the first syllable.

“Wait. What?”

Again, these were not from Kurapika. They were the words he’d been intending to say in startled surprise without thinking. Something had said them before he could, perfectly matching his speed and intonation, identical to the manner in which he would’ve imagined himself speaking. It was as if his own echo had preceded him, cutting him off in his own voice.

Kurapika switched languages. If this was a trick, it was a convincing one. If the lake were reading his mind…perhaps he could test it to know for sure. Even with the supernatural powers granted by Nen, reading another person’s mind was nearly impossible. Thoughts created in the moment were never clear, never precise enough to grasp onto. Memories could be read because memories were recorded and stored away, but active thought? The mental acuity and self-awareness required to even begin to tell one’s own thoughts apart from the subject’s made the skill all but unheard of between humans.

Kurapika recited three different days of the week, the proper name of the white shirt and trousers of his people’s traditional garb, and his maternal grandfather’s full name. Each time the other voice, half drowned in the gurgling of the distant water, came first. Gradually, it began to shake in fear and uncertainty, stuttering softly through the dead man’s name without fully completing it. Deftly, it reflected Kurapika’s current, wavering mental state back at him, a mirror of every emotion surging through him and carried back up to him from below.

There couldn’t be anyone in the channel. There was only Kurapika. The ledge where he knelt and the stream further down were one place spreading thinner. His En and his consciousness coated the entire area like a film, fanning out, escaping him, trickling down into the lake.

By some miracle, Kurapika caught sight of the sprig on his arm just as it began to turn color. He leapt to his feet, following the line of rope back to the trees and unfastening it with trembling hands. He looked back, not sure why, and saw there was water gurgling up and splashing from the line in the ground where the crevice cut down into the underground stream. He couldn’t remember having seen the water rise while he’d been kneeling. For a second, the splash that broke the surface looked like struggling fingers, a hand, someone flailing as they struggled to pull themselves up with their arms after falling in and breaking all the bones in their legs and feet on the way down.

Kurapika moved back through the woods and away from the terrifying nearness of the water’s edge that’d risen on its own to meet him. The trip back was a half-remembered blur. He blinked, and then he was back on top of The Slice, leaning heavily on the camera pole and breathing in slow to collect himself. Although it’d have to fill an impossible amount of the basin to reach him now, Kurapika felt he was still dangerously close to the lake. He imagined toxins irritating the skin of his legs, but when the looked down his worksuit was perfectly intact. It was probably the irritation of running uphill so fast in a suit that was too big and chaffed no matter how much he’d tried to size it down. 

Right now wasn’t the time to stop and guess uselessly about something like this. Not here, outside, exposed. He gathered his toolkit and the supplies he’d dropped off at the base of the pole, and he left. It wasn’t time to think. Not yet. Not until he was far away with a sturdy, locked door between him and the whole basin.

He tried and failed to ignore the echo of his footfalls as he hurried through the woods, back towards the thin, winding remnant of the path to the station. He couldn’t tell if the footsteps came before or after or at precisely the same time as his own, but the otherness was unmistakable. There was something following him. He would never outpace it; it couldn’t be left behind. It’d been planted in his mind at the edge of the lake and sprouted. It lived there now, along with him, taking up space despite being, at the same time, nothing at all.


	8. The Stranger

The hallucinatory side effects of exposure to low amounts of the lake’s vapor, though intrusive, were thankfully temporary. Kurapika reminded himself of this as he reached the station door and let himself in. The footsteps that’d pursued him through the woods couldn’t catch up to him in the bright, tiled halls of the station. It was too much of a world apart there, a separate plane of existence. Cool air washed over him along with a wave of relief as he leaned against the nearest wall and slid down to sit on the floor. A housekeeping robot on sentinel duty rolled up to inspect him. It made an inquisitive beep when he didn’t acknowledge it. Stirred by the sound and the machine prodding his foot right after, he opened his eyes and stood up.

Before anything else, he made his way to the nearest functioning decontamination room and began the exacting procedure of sanitizing himself so he could remove his gear and change. Over half an hour later, he stepped out rinsed and refreshed. He let the scampering housekeeping robots put the room back in order behind him as he went to carefully arrange his plant and soil samples on a long, covered tray. He carried the tray with him back to the briefing room.  

Dr. Costu wasn’t there waiting for him, but they hadn’t arranged for a post-expedition meeting anyway. Instead, Kurapika was looking for the list of work assignments he’d left and asked Dr. Costu to copy for him while out. Of course, it wasn’t there. Dr. Costu hadn’t got around to it yet, which was astounding, considering he basically had nothing to do all day. Kurapika tsked and continued on to the infirmary, ready to reprimand the man and take the list back to copy on his own.

As Kurapika passed through the waiting room’s perennially open door, he was caught off guard by the chaotic scene. Somehow, even without searching the offices and sick rooms to make sure, he knew Dr. Costu wasn’t there. The gentle hum of activity that never failed to announce the doctor’s presence was absent, leaving only silent, unanswering disarray behind. In his own office, Dr. Costu had thrown everything off the desk. He’d also swept every inch of counter space surrounding it clear, which made the office feel brighter, more open, although the floor was a minefield of destroyed objects. A continuing riot of medical paraphernalia, glass shards and office supplies littered the main areas of the infirmary as the doctor’s trail of destruction branched out from his office and away with no clear direction or purpose.

Kurapika picked his way through the mess to inspect the patient rooms. In the end, only one of the multipurpose exam rooms had been blown into by the same, furious hurricane of destruction that’d decimated Dr. Costu’s office and the main area. Debris littered the counter and floor, but the privacy curtain surrounding the padded bed against the wall had surprisingly survived the ordeal. Kurapika slowed his step before yanking the curtain back to confront whatever might be hiding behind it.

The examination table was empty, but at the left side, around torso height, was a dull, dark stain where a smeared pool of blood had collected and soaked into the protective paper lining. Along the wall, a thin blood splatter traveled up and to the side. From experience, Kurapika knew it hadn’t been a significant enough loss to kill anyone. At the same time, he noticed there wasn’t a trail of blood leading to or from the examination table to the door. 

Kurapika thought of Dr. Morro, locked away in his control room. On the ceiling by the door he spotted one of the station’s omnipresent cameras. Even if, somehow, unbelievably, Dr. Morro hadn’t been involved, there was a high chance he’d seen what’d happened. The footage taken by the cameras might be Kurapika’s only clue, since a video could at least show him who’d been in the room.

Footsteps sounded outside. Someone else had entered the waiting room while Kurapika had been distracted. Kurapika tensed to turn around and meet whoever it might be, but the sudden memory of the footsteps he’d heard trailing him outside in the woods kept him frozen in place. He couldn’t possibly be imagining things now. He was inside the station, had been there for nearly an hour. Whatever he’d been exposed to outside wouldn’t have lasted this long.

Kurapika was better at dealing with people than he was at dealing with the unknown, but something told him this wasn’t a person. His En, he realized, which he’d instinctively activated while searching for Dr. Costu, wasn’t picking up on whoever was there. Kurapika held his breath and waited. His mind frantically tried to understand what was happening.

Meanwhile, the footsteps started pacing in agitation, nudging pens and papers and sending rattling pill bottles rolling. They didn’t seem to care about the mess. They were searching for something. With a sickening feeling, Kurapika realized it was too late to conceal his presence. If the other person could detect aura, then they already had a good idea of where exactly he was.

Almost as suddenly as they’d arrived, the footsteps slowed and stopped. A moment later, they retreated back out into the hall. Kurapika breathed normally again. He wondered with a jolt of greater anxiety where Dr. Costu could possibly have gone.

After leaving the infirmary, Kurapika performed a quick search of the station. He lacked the proper access codes and keycards to enter every room, so, the most he could do was check the halls and try Dr. Costu’s quarters. The door wouldn’t be locked, since none of the doors to anyone’s living quarters locked for reasons Dr. Morro made more than evident by isolating himself in the biggest room he could shut everyone else out of. When Kurapika entered Dr. Costu’s room, he found it not only empty, but untouched. Everything was covered in dust and unaltered from what must’ve been the room’s original configuration when Dr. Costu had been assigned to it five years before. The whirlwind of destruction in the infirmary clearly hadn’t made it this far. Kurapika conducted a quick, half-hearted investigation of the closets and bathroom, but he already knew in the back of his mind that the only option left was the control room and Dr. Morro.

That was, of course, assuming Dr. Morro hadn’t also gone missing. It was assuming Kurapika hadn’t been left utterly alone here, exposed, waiting for whatever had got the two doctors to come for him next.

Steadily, insidiously, fear began to grow in the back of Kurapika’s mind. At his sides, his hands trembled ever so slightly before he got a hold of himself and marched to the control room, ready to knock the door down if Dr. Morro wouldn’t open it.

“Dr. Morro!” Kurapika called out. He hit the door several times in succession with his dowsing chain much harder and louder than he ever had before. “I am not, I repeat, NOT, in a mood to wait on you today. Let me in right now, or I promise I will find some way to destroy this door before nightfall. Do you understand me?”

As expected, there was no response. Kurapika repeated the threat again and hit the door harder.

“Dr. Costu has gone missing. I need to see the security tapes. Let me in.”

Kurapika had just turned on his heel to leave and begin searching through the station for an improvised battering ram, when at last, miraculously, the door behind him slipped open enough to pass through. Without wasting a second, he slid sideways into the control room and was blinded by the abrupt darkness illuminated only by the fuzzy white glow of video screens.

“Dr. Costu is in break room #42, taking a nap,” said Dr. Morro with a yawn. He didn’t rise to meet Kurapika. He didn’t even look at him. “You can’t have been searching hard enough. He’s been in and out of his quarters and the infirmary since you got back.”

“That makes no sense. I was in his room myself a minute ago and nothing’s been touched. He hasn’t been in there in days, weeks, maybe months. He’s probably never used it in his life.”

“He’s been going in and out now. Clearly while you were running around the station in a frenzy, you must’ve missed him.”

Dr. Morro scratched his chin and grumbled to himself when he saw Kurapika had found him in the darkness and was approaching. The older man was more disheveled than he’d been the first time he and Kurapika had met. Kurapika remembered what Dr. Costu had told him that morning about having ordered Dr. Morro to make a good impression on the new Hunter. He realized that what he was seeing now was Dr. Morro’s true, natural state. Though he wasn’t filthy or greasy, an odor of neglect hung from him, body sweat mingled with the funk of lightly worn clothes that had been reused for days without proper laundering.

For the first time, Kurapika noticed a pile of crates in a far corner and recognized them from supply closets and pantries he’d seen around the station. A row of wall lockers, half of them filled beyond capacity and overflowing, indicated where the contends of the crates had gone. This, he supposed, answered his question of how Dr. Morro sustained himself. The dimly glowing signs of two gendered restrooms, which had been required in the days when the station had operated with a full team of researchers working in shifts, came into view next, as if in subtle answer to a question only just starting to take shape in Kurapika’s mind.

“Did you see why Dr. Costu made such a mess of his office?” asked Kurapika. He was too tired to argue with Dr. Morro about Dr. Costu’s whereabouts. He didn’t want to explain how he knew there’d been no sign of the man in the entire building, that his En hadn’t sensed him. It was as if Dr. Costu had ceased to exist.

“I didn’t see it. I was watching the outside cameras, checking in on your repairs. The room was already in its current state by the time you began heading back. I supposed he just had some kind of fit in there. Perhaps something he was working on didn’t pan out.”

“You didn’t think to look back to see exactly why.”

Dr. Morro glanced into a ceramic cup at his elbow and sighed because it was empty. He picked it up and set it beside his console with a loud clunk.

“He takes walks around the station to clear his mind when he’s restless,” said Dr. Morro as though Kurapika were supposed to somehow already know this. “It’s his only alternative since he can’t go outside. I’m not really surprised he’s chosen to hide himself in a quiet corner for a bit. The man needs some time to think, to clear his head. He’s been lethargic recently, laying around with nothing to do. I think the big adrenaline rush of caring for you after such a long stretch of inactivity reminded him how it feels to be properly utilized in his position. I’m not surprised. You shouldn’t be, either. It’s only a small personal crisis he’s suffering. It passes.”

As Dr. Morro spoke, Kurapika scanned the wobbling, pallid images that filled the illuminated screens before them. After a while he recognized different rooms and corridors throughout the station. There were many places he wasn’t familiar with, as well.

Dr. Morro noticed Kurapika’s interest and reached over with a lazy stretch of his hand to tap a far screen on the left. Kurapika didn’t recognize the room. A few round tables, television screens, and more seating options that three people could ever hope to use, occupied the space. Even more furniture, pushed against the wall in tight rows, had become a sea of unrecognizable bumps and corners beneath carefully lain dustsheets.

In the station manual’s introduction to the various aspects of life within the Solaris Basin Research Station, the importance of camaraderie between researchers had been stressed ahead of everything else. As he spotted the stored surplus furniture, Kurapika vaguely recalled one chapter in which those working in the station were compelled to spend time together and take a few minutes a day to touch base and socialize. The anxiety inducing effects of the harsh environment, the manual had speculated, could be mitigated in the presence of large groups with healthy interpersonal relationships. Kurapika had skimmed the rest of the chapter without caring and written it off as the writers of the manual haranguing him to make friends. Since the beginning, the station had always been notoriously difficult to staff. Getting along with your coworkers was an incentive to stick around.

The shutters had been rolled up from one of the room’s large, curved windows. The late afternoon light streamed in, lighting a pale path that ended at the door. Cutting part of the way through this path was an uncovered couch.

“He’s on the couch,” said Dr. Morro, “but the backrest has him blocked. He does this sometimes. Stares out the window there, thinking his thoughts, whatever they are. Ah, see? He’s moving now. Guess he was sitting on the floor.”

Kurapika watched Dr. Costu rise to his feet, dust off his loose scrubs, and stretch. He stared at the couch for a long time with his hands on his hips, and then bent down. Kurapika wondered what he’d left there, but oddly, he seemed to be asking a question to something, someone, perhaps. Another person must’ve been lying on the couch, except there couldn’t possibly have been anyone. There wasn’t anyone else in the entire station but him, Kurapika, and Dr. Morro.

The phantom footsteps in the woods echoed in Kurapika’s mind a third time. He recalled the sounds of someone who wasn’t there entering the infirmary and searching for something before leaving. The heat of the monitor and the humid warmth his own breath bounced back against his face as he leaned in closer to the screen.

Shapes were hazy, pixelated and poor. No matter how close he got, they wouldn’t get any clearer. And yet, Kurapika couldn’t pull himself away. He watched Dr. Costu straighten up again, give the room a thoughtful looking over, and step around the couch to leave. He reached the door in four strides and entered the hall.

“I guess he’s up, now,” said Dr. Morro. “Leave his office as-is. You don’t need to help him with that. He’ll clean it up. It’ll give him something to do.”

Kurapika didn’t say a word. He’d backed away from the screen, but his eyes remained fixed on the image of the empty room. Something was wrong there. Though loath to admit it, Kurapika didn’t feel like he knew the image of Dr. Costu he’d just seen. It wasn’t the same man he’d spoken to that morning, but rather, something altered. Something new.

Kurapika remembered the blood on the bed in the infirmary.

From the corner of his eye, Kurapika quietly assessed Dr. Morro’s own physical condition. As suspected, there was no sign of injury on him. He’d refilled his ceramic cup at some point and was taking a sip of coffee from it, openly frowning with impatience over Kurapika’s lingering presence in his sanctum. Kurapika had enough knowledge of injury to know the man wasn’t moving or acting like someone who’d been bleeding enough to splatter a wall within the past five hours.

Kurapika searched the screens until he found the group of cameras monitoring the doctor’s office and the surrounding area. The room with the offending bloodstains stood as Kurapika had left it, although in the hazy image of the video camera its grislier condition wasn’t immediately obvious. The shadowy blob near the head of the bed had no color and could’ve been anything. The matching splatter on the near wall was blurred to the point of being nearly invisible.

“It is possible to rewind the video to see what took place here?” he asked, pointing to the office. “I would like to know what set Dr. Costu off.”

“That isn’t usually a thing you can get from a video,” scoffed Dr. Morro. His tone said Kurapika was an idiot and should leave, but Kurapika didn’t give up so easily. Dr. Morro would have to literally throw him out before he’d leave, and the man wasn’t physically capable of pushing a Pro Hunter around so easily.

“You’ll be wasting your time,” said Dr. Morro. “I told you. He probably just had some kind of fit or whatever for his own reasons. It’s not that weird a thing to happen to people around here, given the circumstances. And anyway, what are you going to even do if there is a reason, like some project of his failed or something? Are you going to confront him about managing his temper? Please. Mind your own business. We’ll all get along better here if we all just mind our own business.”

“This room here is covered in blood,” said Kurapika. He pressed a defiant finger against the screen so hard it paled around the edges. “I don’t know what kind of experiment would constitute spilling blood all over a examination room. I’m curious about it. I’d like to find out.”

Dr. Morro’s eyes narrowed as he studied the suspect mark on the bed. He gave Kurapika an incredulous look, but knew it would be easier to go along. He let out a heavy, put-upon sigh as he pulled a keyboard over and asked Kurapika what time he’d left the station that morning.

In moments, Dr. Morro was cycling through files of video, mumbling something about how the data was erased and recorded over every few weeks. He had to say something to fill the silence, to compete with the quiet resentment radiating off of Kurapika like a suffocating heat and making the spacious, frigid control room too uncomfortable and close. An image of the briefing room from that morning  appeared on the screen. In it, Dr. Costu was just finishing his departing words to Kurapika and leaving.

Kurapika pulled a chair over and sat down. Dr. Morro navigated through video recordings from different cameras, tracking Dr. Costu’s progress without following each and every step. He muttered that reliving every damn second was a huge waste of time. Kurapika agreed it was best to get a summary before backtracking for fine details, while Dr. Morro scoffed at the idea Kurapika was going to get him to backtrack for any details whatsoever.

“Okay, so, he’s sitting in his office,” said Dr. Morro like Kurapika wasn’t looking at exactly the same thing. “I’m just gonna skip ahead until he starts wrecking the place, since there’s no way to know when he actually started his rampage.” Silently, the video sped forward. “Looks like he ran some tests, I guess. Had to check them a few times. Probably was waiting on the results.”

“What research has Dr. Costu been doing?”

“Dunno. Something medical.”

“You have no idea?” asked Kurapika. He recalled Dr. Costu’s similar lack of concern for Dr. Morro’s work. It didn’t surprise him to see the feeling was mutual.

“It could be anything,” continued Kurapika in disbelief after Dr. Morro only shrugged. “He could be creating medicine, sure, or he could be making weapons, new poisons, stuff like that. How can you be so nonchalant about it?”

Dr. Morro frowned. “If these plants could create viable weapons—hell, if they’d ever shown even a medical purpose beyond a painful death—trust me, we’d have a lot more funding and a lot more people around here.”

“Maybe he’s developing something worth funding.”

Dr. Morro stopped the video abruptly and turned, ready to level with Kurapika. It was the first time he’d looked at Kurapika directly since Kurapika had entered the control room.

“Alright, look. Do you care about the man’s research, or do you care about finding out the ridiculous reason he messed up his office and apparently got blood all over an examination room?”

Kurapika didn’t reply. He sat back in a huff and waved a hand, permitting Dr. Morro to continue skipping through the video uninterrupted. Dr. Morro shook his head before turning back around, never ceasing to grumble about the waste of time all this was. Kurapika bit back a comment on how, actually, this was the only honest use of Dr. Morro’s time Kurapika had ever witnessed since he’d come to the station.

“Wait, go back a bit.”

“What?”

“That shadow in the corner that just appeared. Go back to it.”

Dr. Morro paused the video and then clicked back, unconvinced. He let the video play at real-time speed, and Kurapika reached out and pointed to indicate a corner of hallway that was the furthest visible point beyond the Dr. Costu’s office door. A shadow had begun to pass by it, back and forth, cutting through the light of the hall lamps in a manner suggesting someone pacing right outside. Over the short course of a minute, the shadow steadily grew darker, a ghost materializing into something real. Once it was fully formed, what looked like Dr. Costu himself walked into the infirmary from the hall and entered his own office.

Except…Dr. Costu, the first Dr. Costu, was already seated at the counter, his back turned to the door as he examined a row of vials and took notes. The extraneous Dr. Costu behind him took a seat on one of the rolling stools, casually observing the other as he worked, waiting.

The two versions of Dr. Costu were dressed differently. Whereas the first wore the same loose scrubs as always, the second, the Stranger, wore fitted trousers, a white shirt, and a vest. There’d also been a hat on his head, but he’d removed it when he’d come in and was turning it over listlessly in his hands.

“Who the hell…” whispered Dr. Morro.

“You see it, too?” asked Kurapika. He wasn’t sure why he’d assumed he’d have been the only one who could. He hadn’t been using Gyo. Using Gyo now, there wasn’t anything different except that the Stranger didn’t seem to be giving off aura.

“Shh, look,” hissed Dr. Morro. “Costu’s turning around.”

The first Dr. Costu was speaking, but ceased the moment he spotted the Stranger. Apparently this person, this doppelganger, was not who he’d expected. Dr. Costu grew so still that, for moment, Kurapika believed the image on the screen had frozen. The Stranger implored something of Dr. Costu soon after, which meant Dr. Costu must’ve been speaking to it despite being rooted in place. When the Stranger made to stand, Dr. Costu jumped back and held a hand out in front of him, commanding the Stranger not to get any closer.

What progressed was a study in horrified confusion. Dr. Morro and Kurapika followed along, both wide-eyed and speechless, as Dr. Costu’s initial shock wore off. He spoke heatedly to the Stranger now, but the Stranger didn’t respond likewise. Instead, he hung his head, dejected. It was clear that, though Dr. Costu had been alarmed at the Stranger’s appearance, he recognized who the Stranger was, and the horror of seeing him had converted into rage.

It was Dr. Costu who closed the distance between himself and the Stranger. He pulled the man off the stool violently and threw him onto the floor, shaking him and shouting, perhaps pleading, perhaps commanding, but to no avail. The Stranger pushed him off a few times, but didn’t strike back. When pushing Dr. Costu away failed to deter him, the Stranger coiled himself into a ball, passively defending his face from several weak and poorly aimed blows. Dr. Costu would stop his attacks periodically and point at the door, but the Stranger wouldn’t leave.

Dr. Costu changed tactics, throwing items from around the office at Stranger. He waved his arms at the same time, as though trying to scare away a wild animal that’d got too close to his camp. The Stranger continued to cringe and protect his head as he was forced out of the office at last and into the waiting room of the infirmary. He retreated to a corner and quickly pulled a cushioned chair over, cowering behind it as Dr. Costu began to throw whatever he could find in this room at the Stranger, too. Inevitably, Dr. Costu ran out of ammunition. He approached the Stranger boldly and reached down to pull the him up by his ear like a child. The Stranger complained and beseeched him to let go.

The entire outburst lasted just under ten minutes, and in the end, all Dr. Costu succeeded in doing was tiring himself out. His abuses and attacks lost steam as his fury began to wane. He let go of the Stranger’s ear and took a seat on the ground a short distance away. The Stranger dragged himself along the wall in the opposite direction, but paused when Dr. Costu began speaking to him once more. Casting rueful glances in Dr. Costu’s direction, the Stranger answered. Dr. Costu laughed. He laughed as he stood up and brushed himself off before extending a hand to the Stranger amiably, which the Stranger took with clear reluctance. He smiled as he helped the Stranger back to his feet, and motioned to the side towards what Kurapika soon realized was the nearest examination room door.

Kurapika’s breath caught in his throat as Dr. Costu ushered the Stranger into the examination room ahead of him. The current bloodstains and disorder hadn’t appeared yet. Obediently, the Stranger sat on the examination table before laying back at Dr. Costu’s request. They were speaking easily to each other now. The Stranger shrugged at a comment and chuckled, his tensely held shoulders relaxing. He shut his eyes and rested his head while Dr. Costu took his pulse and checked his vitals.

Wherever the scalpel had come from, it was impossible to tell. There’d been a hundred instances in which Dr. Costu could’ve slipped it into his hand while he’d been raging about the infirmary, and a hundred more while he’d been collecting tools for the examination. Although the blade was nearly invisible in the low image quality of the video, its gruesome effect as Dr. Costu drove it into the Stranger’s neck revealed exactly what it had to be. The Stranger jerked awake with a cry. He wrenched Dr. Costu’s hand away with a strength Kurapika hadn’t anticipated after having watched Dr. Costu throw objects and flail against the insistently harmless Stranger minutes earlier. In the heat of their scuffle, blood burst from the Stranger’s neck in quantities no average human could’ve be expected to wrestle through. The narrow line of the scalpel twisted over and slipped through Dr. Costu’s grasp, slicing into his own exposed palm. He recoiled and waved the Stranger away. To Kurapika’s amazement, the Stranger obeyed and lay back on the examination table, as docile as ever. The blood that’d been spurting from his neck now leaked out in a stream, which he stanched with his sleeve. When the Stranger turned his head look at Dr. Costu a few seconds later, the blood had ceased flowing.

Dr. Morro, who’d never seen a person regenerate so quickly, swallowed hard and shook his head. Kurapika couldn’t judge him. His own mouth was hanging open, and he snapped it shut.

In the video, the Stranger got up from the examination table. After asking where to look, he went through the nearby cabinets and brought out gauze, cotton, and a few bottles of disinfectant. Dutifully, he assisted Dr. Costu in treating the cut on Dr. Costu’s hand. His manner was serene, as though nothing violent or disturbing had transpired. As though Dr. Costu, who he was now assisting, hadn’t just tried to kill him.

The fight was out of Dr. Costu at last. He didn’t laugh or smile or say anything as he plucked the scalpel up from the floor and tossed it onto the counter in defeat. The Stranger, on the other hand, smiled broadly and attempted to put an arm around Dr. Costu’s shoulders as they entered the main area of the infirmary. Dr. Costu didn’t allow this. He indicated the man’s tussled and stained clothes, and directed him to a supply closet so he could change into something else. The Stranger went as he was told. In the meantime, Dr. Costu returned to his office and stood in front of his desk. He had one last fit of frustration and pushed everything that was still left on the desk and the back counter to the floor. It didn’t seem to make him feel much better. He sat down heavily in his chair and stared ahead of him at nothing, thinking deeply, waiting for the Stranger’s inevitable return.

The Stranger had chosen scrubs identical Dr. Costu’s. Kurapika made a small, displeased sound at the sudden, blatant affirmation of just how similar the two men were. Next to Kurapika, Dr. Morro was silent. He never looked away, hardly even blinked. Kurapika didn’t have to say what they were both already thinking: that this Stranger in the video was the man they’d just seen waking up in the break room.

Dr. Costu leaned heavily over the cleared desk, staring down into the space between his elbows as he held his head in his hands. He and the Stranger were talking again. For a long time all either of them did was shift in their seats and occasionally motion around. Dr. Morro startled Kurapika when he spoke up, muttering in irritation that nothing was happening. Without asking, he skipped forward in the recording until Dr. Costu stood from the desk and left the office. They watched him unlock the long pharmacy pantry and step inside. He emerged a minute later with an unexpected spring in his step, carefully avoiding a few broken bottles as he entered his office. Beaming, he threw on the lab coat he always left hanging on the door, and motioned energetically for the Stranger to follow him.

Kurapika frowned as he tried to decipher what exactly Dr. Costu was holding up and showing the Stranger. He slipped it into his coat pocket before Kurapika could get a good look. Together, he and the Stranger left the infirmary, both in seemingly high spirits.

“You want to bet where they’re headed?” asked Dr. Morro. Kurapika shook his head. The question didn’t anticipate a response. Given how much time had passed so far in the recording, the two of them could easily guess where the story would end.

Though the video had no sound, Kurapika imagined he could hear the footsteps down the hall and the doors sliding open and closed whenever Dr. Costu held up the medical officer’s pass, which let him through without having to enter codes. He heard, far away in his mind, the playful welcome Dr. Costu announced into the empty break room, holding his arms high as if to embrace it. The Stranger went to turn on a lamp, but Dr. Costu stopped him and raised the shutters instead. Both of them stood and stared out into the woods and over the lake. The Stranger behind Dr. Costu shifted his weight from foot to foot restlessly while Dr. Costu spoke. It was difficult for Kurapika to guess what exactly the Stranger was waiting for—not because he couldn’t guess it, but because he didn’t want to be proven right.

“I…” Kurapika began, but his voice was distant and not his own. It emerged unnatural, like a dubbed film that had gone out of sync with the action. He couldn’t stop blinking as he watched Dr. Costu turn away from the window and hold up a pair of vials so that they caught the light. He set them on the window sill before having the Stranger help him yank the dust cover off a couch and then drag the couch to where they could see the view. They sat down on it together, very close.

“How long ago was this?” blurted Kurapika, a nervous energy in his arms and legs compelling him to run, to hurry, to go right now before it was too late.

“Maybe three, four hours.”

On the screen, Dr. Costu had just finished administering whatever poison he’d brought along, first for the ever-obliging Stranger, and then for himself. The two had another short debate, something quieter, more sluggish. The Stranger moved with a willful huff from the couch to the floor, though Dr. Costu asked him to stay. The Stranger didn’t budge, but gently persuaded Dr. Costu to lie down. Dr. Costu either gave in, or had already passed out, since a moment later, he was no longer in sight of the camera.

“Shit. Then, it’s too late,” said Kurapika. He’d stood up without thinking the moment he realized what was going to happen, but, there was nowhere to go. He took a few blind steps backwards until he found his chair again and collapsed into it weakly.

Dr. Morro fast-forwarded the recording until a moment identical that which they’d seen when Kurapika had come into the control room. Up from the floor, moving in a way that was familiar and yet alien, the Stranger stood and brushed off his loose scrubs. He attempted to wake Dr. Costu softly, but Dr. Costu didn’t stir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was written for the [Hunter x Hunter Big Bang 2019 on tumblr](https://hxhbb19.tumblr.com). Check out the artwork created for this fic in the event!
> 
> [Art by ferdbird](https://ferdbird.tumblr.com/post/185804414263/heres-my-entry-for-this-years-hunter-x-hunter). An illustration of the infamous Lake Solaris itself. This will not spoil the fic for you.
> 
>  
> 
> _(Once the fic is fully published I will leave the links in just the first and relevant chapters, as per usual.)_


	9. Lake Solaris

For once, Dr. Morro was at a loss.

“Look. See. The thing is that…well, he’d have been as good as dead whether you’d found him in time or not,” he said, struggling to reassure Kurapika and himself both. The gruff murmur in which he spoke was difficult to follow, but Kurapika didn’t miss a word. “These…ways of doing things…they’re delicate. Neither you nor I would’ve known what to do to save him to begin with. We’re not medical doctors.”

“I know great doctors.”

“Yes, but Costu was a doctor, too. He was pretty good—smart, quick, which is important out here. I’m sure whatever he picked out for himself in that pharmacy was potent and fast-acting. He wasn’t the kind of guy to half-ass—”

“Where is this room?” demanded Kurapika, pointing to the screen. “How do I get there? We’ve wasted enough time.”

“W-wasted time?” asked Dr. Morro. “But you even said it yourself: It’s too late. We never had the time to waste it in the first place.”

“I want to go see for myself,” said Kurapika. His eyes didn’t leave the faraway screen where the room was being broadcast back to them live. “And anyway, we can’t just leave him there.”

There was a blur of movement on another screen further up. Dr. Morro drew Kurapika’s attention to it.

“You’re forgetting he’s got company,” said Dr. Morro. At the end of the hall outside Dr. Costu’s private quarters, the Stranger had once again appeared. He paused in front of Dr. Costu’s door for several seconds, then grasped the handle and entered.

“Where did he come from?” asked Kurapika. “Are you sure you don’t know who that is?”

“No idea. We can try to go back in the recording, see where he got in originally.”

Kurapika nodded, his expression grim. “Okay. Sure,” he said. “He or it or whatever; this person entered the infirmary from the hall, so, we can start there.”

Dr. Morro accessed the video from the hall camera and rewound it to the time the Stranger had first appeared. For several agonizing minutes the hallway stood empty, tranquil, boringly normal. Kurapika was about to suggest the man had simply appeared in the doorway itself, somehow, created by some illusion that could only be perceived from within the infirmary itself. It was hard to figure out how that would work, even considering the power of Nen, but it was the only connection Kurapika’s frazzled mind could make.

Before Kurapika could offer any guesses, the image on the screen shook. Something indistinct shimmered in the corner, and then, like a swarm of glittering insects converging in on one space, traces of an unknown material pulled together and joined onto a central, column-like mass. As soon as Kurapika understood what he was seeing, the process was already over, and there stood the Stranger, fully realized in the otherwise vacant hallway.

Dr. Morro rewound the tape, going back and forth several times, pausing and unpausing within the short seconds in which the Stranger had materialized. Kurapika remained quiet. The two of them were of the same mind at that moment, performing double-take upon double-take, unable to make sense of what must’ve occured.

Every frozen moment where Dr. Morro stopped the recording held something grotesque, uneven, confused. The body hadn’t been built from the inside out, top to bottom, or in any similarly logical order. The stump of a heel and the blur of a shoe sole came together before the foot and the rest of the leg. In another frame was the outline of an exposed cranium, pale and dented like a papier-mâché cap, without flesh but already blotted with tufts of hair and patches of the Stranger's hat standing out like continents on a globe. Further below, a sleeve was taking shape in long strips while the fingers beyond its cuff were murky smears.

And yet, despite the winding road to it construction, in less than a minute the Stranger stood, fully formed and alive, as though he’d always existed and hadn’t just been pulled miraculously from the ether.

“Is it…Nen?” asked Dr. Morro, unaccustomed to the word and pronouncing it awkwardly. Something was wrong about the question, but at the moment Kurapika couldn’t think what it was. All he could focus on was the Stranger. Where had its building blocks come from? Who’d assembled it, and for what purpose?

Dr. Morro asked him again, more agitated this time.

“Well, is it, or is it not?”

“Is it what?” asked Kurapika.

“ _Nen_. You Hunters know Nen, right? Some kind of hocus-pocus aura-based superpower? My question is, are we watching something to do with Nen? I can’t tell by myself.”

“Oh, uh, no,” said Kurapika, stumbling through the response in a stilted, guarded tone. He remembered, now. Nen wasn’t something Dr. Morro should’ve known about. “I uh, already checked for it. There’s no aura around this man, or at least not that I can make out in this poor quality image. He’s either in a state where he’s repressing his aura, or he doesn’t possess any and…and therefore isn’t what one would conventionally consider ‘alive’ by most definitions. Aura is life energy itself.”

“Ah, well, in that case, do you have any other secret Hunter knowledge that might explain it?”

“No, but….” Kurapika deliberated. He had to get the matter of potential illegal Nen knowledge out of the way quickly, or he was going to waste too much time. “I’m curious where you heard about Nen. Is it somewhat known in your country, or…?”

“No. The other Hunter told me.”

Kurapika sighed. That was the answer he’d feared.

“You mean the man here before me, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Why did he tell you about Nen? It’s not permitted except under certain extenuating circumstances.”

Dr. Morro shrugged. “I brought to his attention some extenuating circumstances from my own experience out here, and he speculated that perhaps what I saw was some kind of materialization of the lake’s aura.”

“But the lake doesn’t have aura. I’ve never seen it.”

“He said sometimes it does, or something similar enough. He told me that he was here to test the lake’s sensitivity to Nen. I’d originally been told he was investigating the lake’s—or the basin’s or whatever’s—mind-altering effects. At the end of the day, maybe those effects were also a part of his mission, along with the Nen, but I dunno. Does Nen cause hallucinations?”

“Nen does more things than I could count for you. So, perhaps; but I’ve never personally known such an ability.”

“Well, if it’s not Nen, then it’s some other supernatural bullshit.”

“…I suppose so.”

Dr. Morro snorted derisively and looked at Kurapika, bitterly amazed with him.

“You know,” said Dr. Morro, crossing his arms over his narrow chest and leaning back, “I used to think supernatural bullshit was right up a Hunter’s alley. But, after seeing how the other guy cut tail and ran, I’m beginning to doubt you Hunters’ commitment to exploring the unknown. You’re all talk and special privileges, but you can’t even deal with a nosy lake and some hallucinations here and there.”

“Some hallucinations here and there?” asked Kurapika. “You can’t wrestle a hallucination to the ground. You can’t stab it with a scalpel and have it bleed all over a hospital bed. Whatever that thing out there is, it’s real enough.”

“No, no. See, you’re thinking just like the other Hunter, now,” said Dr. Morro, speaking over Kurapika. “You’re conflating a hallucination with something locked away in a person’s own mind, a bunch of false signals your brain feeds you that can’t actually hurt you.”

Kurapika made a doubtful sound in response.

“But, _this_ ,” explained Dr. Morro. “This is a hallucination lifted out of your head and dropped in front of you.”

Flickers of movement in the monitors showed the Stranger was on the move again. Kurapika’s eyes passed over the figure striding down the hall, trying to discern some sign, some hint that it wasn’t actually real. Even after witnessing the Stranger’s creation before his very eyes, he couldn’t reconcile what he’d seen with the physical being walking down the hall with such a distinctive, shuffling step, casting an unmistakably solid shadow as it passed under the lights.

“Have you seen something like this before?” asked Kurapika. Dr. Morro nodded.

“Seen it, touched it, had every sense subjected to it, tried to kill it off,” listed Dr. Morro too quickly for Kurapika to doubt him. There was a new hint of eagerness his voice Kurapika didn’t find comforting. “What do you think the people in this region are talking about when they say the basin is full of ghosts and avoid it?”

Despite so much evidence to the contrary, Kurapika found the notion outrageous. It was impossible for the lake to have constructed a physical form from a person’s mind, especially without using Nen.

“So, we all get to experience each other’s hallucinations together, then? Is that it?” asked Kurapika. “In that case, why are we still witnessing the tangible hallucination on the screen now if it belongs to Dr. Costu and not us? How can it still be here if to the best of our knowledge Dr. Costu has died?”

Dr. Morro clasped his hands in his lap, looking pleased. He swiveled his chair around to face Kurapika, keeping his voice low when he spoke and forcing Kurapika to lean in.

“Lake Solaris can extract things from your mind the way a doctor can extract a sample of your cells,” he explained, the subtle edge of excitement in his tone only exaggerating the uncanny glint in his eyes. “The lake can replicate, reproduce, and experiment on whatever it wants in us, but the crux is it doesn’t know us from our physical forms. The electrical impulse controlling your heartbeat involuntarily and the synapses firing charged ions inside your brain as you think and react are one and the same. The lake just knows that we are. It knows that we respond to certain stimuli, nothing else. We study the lake, and the lake studies us, and neither is illuminated by what they observe in the other. Lake Solaris is a God that crashed down to this planet and cannot fathom a Creation it did not itself construct. It can only mimic what it finds, just as we stare into its waters blindly, treating it as an intelligent puddle or aqueous brain, while seeing nothing but fragments of our own reflections wrinkled and distorted on its surface.”

Kurapika took a deep breath and stared hard at Dr. Morro. “You’re giving an awful lot of credit to a lake,” he said.

“Now isn’t the time to be dismissive because something is beyond your comprehension,” Dr. Morro warned him. “That arrogance of you Hunters who think you understand the world for having grasped one mysterious, supernatural aspect of it, is going to cause you to turn out no different than your predecessor. By the time that man realized the truth, that your Nen had nothing to do with what goes on here, he abandoned his original mission. He’d barely scratched the surface of what the lake was capable of, but chose not to wait around to see what pieces of him it would sample and dissect the longer he hung around. I can only suppose from such a reaction that there was something inside him he feared enough to know he wouldn’t be able to withstand it if it confronted him. Just like Costu today couldn’t withstand it. Never leaving, never stepping outside gave Costu a sense of security and the strength to endure as long as he did. But now, the lake wants to reach into the station itself. And now, Costu has abandoned his mission in his own way, leaving like the other Hunter left, just like how you’ll eventually leave. Or rather, escape.”

Dr. Morro sounded more absurd the longer he spoke, but Kurapika hardly wished to interrupt him. He knew he’d need to find the real truth on his own somewhere between Dr. Morro’s theories and his own perceptions. Being a Hunter, and one with a broader resume than his low-level, research-minded predecessor, Kurapika had more experience than Dr. Morro knew to give him credit for.

“Not every Hunter is the same, Dr. Morro,” said Kurapika as he adjusted his loose uniform shirt and stood. “I won’t prove so easily fazed. The previous Hunter stationed here and I aren’t in any way comparable to one another. Now, tell me, where is this room in the video where I can find Dr. Costu?”

“Don’t you want to wait until that other guy makes a full circuit? There’s never been one of him inside the station. I won’t lie to you. I don’t know what he’s capable of, how he’ll react if you cross paths.”

“I’m not afraid of whoever or whatever that is. If it presents a threat, I’ll meet that threat,” said Kurapika. Far away, muted by his sleeves, came the soft clink of metal as he conjured his chains. “Right now, I’ll need a list of every keycode in this building.”

“You aren’t authori—”

“From this point on, there shouldn’t be any room in this station I’m not capable of accessing. This station is ours, yours and mine, so, as far as I care to see it, we’re equals. Your role is to stay inside and do whatever it is you do in here that I couldn’t care less about. My role is to go everywhere else and do everything else. You may continue to direct my repair work, since it’s being done for your benefit, but there is no hierarchy between us, and I will not take orders from you.”

“I have seniority over you in every way, kid.”

“And I don’t respect seniority in these matters. Unless you mean you wish to leave this room and work alongside me in a more active, supervisory role…?”

The enthusiasm that’d overflowed from Dr. Morro as he’d let himself speak openly about his theories on the lake now left him. He seemed to physically deflate in its absence. The hands in his lap unclasped and went limp at his sides, no longer repressing so much trembling, excited energy between them.

“I have to keep an eye on things here,” he muttered without looking up. “I have to watch out.”

 “Then, stay here,” said Kurapika. “I’m going, and I’ll need that list of keycodes.”

Reluctantly, Dr. Morro rose to retrieve a binder from a file cabinet at the back of the room. He pulled a sheet from it and said Kurapika should make a copy and then return the original right away so that everything remained in order. Kurapika promised to do so. He then had Dr. Morro indicate for him on a station map where the break room was located.

“One thing,” said Dr. Morro as Kurapika was leaving. Kurapika stopped just at the door. “I remember the other Hunter just sitting around, writing for ages. He hardly left his desk in the library after the truth of the situation began to really sink in. The one day he wasn’t there, was the day he ran off.” Dr. Morro hesitated. “Maybe you should check on what he wrote up while he was here. It’s still there, all of it, in the library.”

“I see,” said Kurapika, not very interested. “Do you want to read it yourself? I can collect it for you.”

“No. Costu tried, but neither of us could get the damn folder open. It’s got some kind of seal on it. I figured it was one of your Hunter tricks to keep out those of us who aren’t blessed with your Nen or whatever.”

“That’s true. That probably was the case.”

“I knew it,” spat Dr. Morro, triumphant but not pleased. “And here you Hunters have the audacity to question why normal people can’t stand or trust any of you….”

Kurapika only shrugged. “I never question it,” he said. He opened the door and nodded once to Dr. Morro before stepping outside. “Goodbye.”

“Good riddance.”

The door closed with an ominous mechanical hiss behind Kurapika as he entered the hall. Clutching the page of access codes and his map, he set out for Dr. Costu’s final location. Though he knew what he would encounter in that room, he dreaded it all the same. In spite of what one might consider extensive experience with the deaths of others, Kurapika hadn’t grown immune to the underlying horror of it all, especially when it came to the eerie, eternal stillness as it settled over someone he’d recently seen alive. 

The empty halls felt no different from when Kurapika had hurried through them in search of Dr. Costu earlier. According to Kurapika’s last glance at the video monitors, the Stranger was currently pacing the infirmary. Predicting when he’d come back around to the break room was impossible, since he didn’t travel in a definite path. Some drive compelled the Stranger to wander between the three fixed points of the infirmary, Dr. Costu’s quarters, and the break room, but the amount of time he spent loitering about each was inconsistent. Kurapika had to accept that he’d eventually run into this mysterious person, since, without Dr. Morro’s cooperation, there was no way to avoid it.

“Here we are,” Kurapika murmured to himself in front of the door to the break room. He traced his finger over the sheet of access codes and programmed the door to remain unlocked behind him. A locked door wouldn’t deter the Stranger, who’d re-entered the room twice already since leaving, but an unlocked one would facilitate coming and going so Kurapika wouldn’t have to remember the code.

A hazy, blue-gray light filled the break room. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, plunging much of the interior of the basin into shadowy evening. Between the densest trees, night had already fallen, dark and impermeable, stirring up tiny, pale moths that landed briefly on the windowpane and crawled over it, attracted by the light from the hall as Kurapika hesitated in the doorway. At last he stepped through, and the door slid shut, caging him within the darkening gloom. He eyed the black square of the couch facing the window and shivered with the grim knowledge of what lay upon it.

Kurapika switched on the nearest light, but the bulb flickered and went out immediately. Before losing the last of the scant daylight to guide him, he went to the furniture lined up along the wall and searched for another lamp. Instead, he found a switch that, when flipped, illuminated a light bar along the ceiling, filling the room with a low, ambient glow. It was enough to see by for now. He didn’t want to spend too long rummaging around in the dark with his back to the door.

From his current location, Kurapika could see Dr. Costu lying on the couch. He went to check his pulse to confirm he was dead, though looking around the room with Gyo guaranteed there was no aura there but Kurapika’s own. He searched for the vials and syringes next, and found them laid neatly on the ground midway down the length of the couch. The needles were hazardously exposed, so, Kurapika had to be careful to lift them by the proper ends in order to slip them into a plastic container he’d brought along to collect evidence.

For a long time, Kurapika didn’t look directly at Dr. Costu. He couldn’t afford to allow his thoughts to wander. But, as he snapped the container shut and turned to set it aside, his gaze fell on the armrest and Dr. Costu's head laying heavily against it. His face was familiar but indistinct in the low light of the room. He was on his side, turned towards the large window. From such a vantage point, all he could’ve seen were the tops of the distant mountains and the sky. There was no lake, no toxic wood closing in, no basin. There was only a vast stretch of blue without a single cloud or a bird soaring through it, spanning forever in all directions.

Right now, the window held nothing but inky blackness. The shapes of the mountains could be picked out if one knew what to look for, though it was difficult to see anything past the murky reflection of the room itself. Kurapika didn’t make the effort. His eyes flitted with mild disinterest over his own reflection, noting where his darker, kneeling form, contrasted with the bulbous white mass of Dr. Costu in his lab coat. A paranoid instinct from living in the city urged Kurapika to lower the shutters so that no-one could look in on him, although he knew the shutters wouldn’t be enough to keep out whatever might be watching now.

Kurapika placed the plastic container on the flat top of the nearer armrest and shifted a leg forward in preparation to stand. Before he could, the door slid open, illuminating the wall and area above him as he froze, crouched in the shadow of the couch. A second later, the door slid shut.

Steadily, silently, Kurapika stood to face the Stranger. The Stranger was already halfway to the couch, and stopped, staring at Kurapika. He didn’t seem disturbed to have discovered someone new there.

“Where is…” the Stranger began, but caught sight of Dr. Costu and didn’t finish.

Kurapika stepped aside as the Stranger approached. Oblivious to Kurapika, the Stranger sat on the ground where Kurapika had been kneeling. He was speaking, but to Dr. Costu in a language Kurapika didn’t understand. Kurapika backed away. He took the plastic container from the armrest, but the Stranger didn’t notice or care. Less than a minute later Kurapika was outside in the hall, clutching the container tightly and commanding himself to hurry and bring it to the infirmary. Then, he had to find a replacement bulb for the light that’d gone out in the break room. Then, maybe he could move the body. Then….

The Stranger had been as real as anyone. His movements, his features, his small sounds of life were all accurate. And yet, on a deeper level, he wasn’t there at all. He gave off no aura, and Kurapika knew even without absolute proof that it couldn’t be Zetsu. The Stranger existed, but wasn’t alive. Perhaps, as Dr. Morro had said, he was a tangible illusion, misleading every sense a person could use to perceive the world around them, and yet somehow unnatural enough that even the most Nen ignorant of the world could tell something was wrong. It absolutely wasn’t real. And yet, it was as real as Dr. Morro or Kurapika himself.

Kurapika headed for the infirmary. When he returned to the break room a half hour later with the new bulb, the Stranger had already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More HxHBB19 artwork!
> 
> [Art by laarems](https://laarems.tumblr.com/post/185910025021/heres-my-piece-for-hxhbb19-for-the-fic-at-the). An illustration of a scene with Leorio, Pairo, and Kurapika from later on in the fic. It's not going to spoil you unless you have no idea what my brand is, and so you find the fact that I wrote Leorio holding Kurapika and crying at some point to be like a major, unforeseeable twist.


	10. Dr. Paladinknight

Mizaistom briefed Leorio on what he was about to hear and suggested he take out a pen and some paper. Grumbling, Leorio complied, acting displeased to conceal the twisting feeling of anxiety in his stomach. Kurapika was always getting himself into situations that endangered his life. Death followed after him wherever he went, reaching out and so far narrowly missing its mark every time Kurapika drew too close. Though Mizaistom had promised Leorio that Kurapika was doing fine, Mizaistom didn’t have the same, private medical knowledge Leorio possessed. As Kurapika’s occasional, off-the-record doctor and closest friend, Leorio would get the final say in just how “fine” Kurapika might or might not be.

“The irreparable nature of much of the damage,” muttered Leorio weakly into his palms at one point during his first run-through of the recording. Mizaistom looked up, but Leorio paid him no mind. “Fucking face-planted into an aspid lily, didn’t you, you idiot,” he muttered again. Mizaistom shrugged and returned to his work.

The near half hour of tape passed with many more similar, but briefer, comments. Mostly, Leorio swore under his breath and groaned throughout the list of toxins Kurapika was supposed to have encountered. At one point he gasped and asked himself, so softly Mizaistom wouldn’t have heard it had the room not been otherwise silent, “how the fuck are you _breathing_ , you [a word, likely pejorative, growled in Leorio’s native language]”. Tightly pursed lips and a grim shake of the head followed this comment. Mizaistom glanced over in time to catch Leorio casting him a dark look, and he quickly turned away, back to his paperwork.

When the tape ended, Leorio replayed it, this time with the pen in his hand and pad of paper on his lap. He scribbled along after the introduction, pausing and going back several times, muttering to himself as he spelled words out and corrected Kurapika’s laymen, best-guess pronunciations of medical terms. Once Leorio left Mizaistom’s office, the recording would be deleted, and he’d have to guard his notes himself until such a time that Kurapika could safely submit a report.

“As you’ve heard, he seems to have made a full recovery,” said Mizaistom after Leorio removed the headphones and sat back with a weary groan of having completed a monumental task.

“He seems to think he has,” agreed Leorio. He didn’t turn to face Mizaistom, but continued to read over his notes. “But then, he doesn’t know shit about medicine, so….”

“If you think he needs to check up on anything in particular, inform me of it once you’ve analyzed his condition. That said, the doctor at the research station seems to have been extremely capable and thorough in his treatment. Kurapika was lucky.”

“Lucky?” asked Leorio. He turned, resting his arm over the back of his chair as he afforded Mizaistom the most patronizing look he could muster in spite of his current exhaustion. “He nearly died within a single day of arriving. How is that lucky? That’s on you, you know. You sent him there. You’re responsible. He’d be dead already if he wasn’t who the hell he is.”

Mizaistom’s calm expression didn’t change. It’d take more than Leorio’s bitter attitude and poorly suppressed resentment to affect him.

“Who Kurapika is,” he reminded Leorio flatly, “is a Hunter, first and foremost. A Hunter manages beyond human limits. That’s why I haven’t doubted for a second the choice to send him there or anywhere else equally inhospitable. I knew he could manage it. And he has.”

“Yes, well, as a medical professional, I can promise you that, though a Hunter can surpass _normal_ human limits, they can’t overcome _all_ human limits. They can still die horribly no matter where the hell they are or how much of a better chance they stand than the average human.”

“It’s still preferable out there than here,” said Mizaistom, His voice rose a little, betraying him. “A lone Hunter, exposed and vulnerable, pitted against other Hunters—as Kurapika would’ve been if he’d stayed put anywhere you deem ‘safe’—will always result in either a massacre or a murder. Either way, people will die.”

“A massacre?” scoffed Leorio. “And who do you think Kurapika’s going to massacre?”

“Kurapika has held his own against Class A bounties in the past. His pursuers know this about him, and it will ensure they won’t hold back once he’s found. If Kurapika doesn’t kill them, they will certainly kill him.”

The jeering smile fell from Leorio’s lips before Mizaistom had finished speaking.

“Kurapika hasn’t killed anyone since…all of that before,” he insisted. He couldn’t look Mizaistom in the eye. What he said next sounded as if he were trying to convince himself more than he was attempting to persuade Mizaistom. “Kurapika doesn’t like to kill anyone. It repulses him.”

“That doesn’t even matter,” said Mizaistom. Leorio stiffened at his sureness. “When a Hunter goes after prey with intent to kill it, someone _will_ die. If anything, my work solving crimes within the Association has taught me that this is a guarantee.”

“Kurapika will definitely hesitate before he has to kill anyone ever again.”

 “Then, he’ll die. Hiding him was the best choice.”

The room was quiet. The fist clenched in Leorio’s lap tightened, but he had nothing to argue back with. He couldn’t say Mizaistom was wrong. He’d never admit Mizaistom was right.

“Now, returning to the subject of this report,” said Mizaistom. He splayed a hand over a document on his desk, which contained a few of his own notes on Kurapika’s medical condition. “I’m assuming when Kurapika mentions these ‘alternative methods’ of treatment in his account of the accident, you know specifically what he’s referring to, correct?”

“I do.”

“And?”

“And it’s not a good sign.”

“How so?”

“It means he took extreme measures as a last resort. It means he would’ve died otherwise.”

“That’s what I suspected, what with the apologetic shift in his tone of voice. It was clearly an admission of guilt. It seems it wasn’t an easy choice.”

Leorio confirmed this with a nod.

“Now,” said Mizaistom, “I’m not going to ask you to divulge a fellow Hunter’s abilities, just as I wouldn’t ask you to divulge a patient’s medical history. But, I assume that whatever he’s done has a notable time-based limitation, and that a high price must be paid when it’s activated. From you, I would only like to know if this ability involves endangering others in any way. Is it symbiotic?”

Leorio furrowed his brow and answered cautiously. “No,” he said. “The particular ability we’re discussing, no. Not at all. None of his abilities require endangering others in order to activate them.”

“Are you absolutely certain of that? Could any of his abilities have somewhat vampiristic qualities, for example?”

“What?” asked Leorio, gaping at Mizaistom as he allowed himself to feel offended on Kurapika’s behalf. “How could something like that even cross your mind? Are people saying the Kurta are vampires now? Is that it? They were boogeymen already. Before that they were demons. What are they going to be next? Extraterrestrials?”

Mizaistom retracted his hand from where it rested, heavy with authority, over the documents on the desk. He took a deep breath and laced his fingers together in front of him, holding back as he considered his limited options and Leorio’s strong emotional investment in the topic at hand. Leorio gritted his teeth and waited with overwhelming impatience to see if Mizaistom would clue him in on what was going on for once.

“You ought to know what’s come up,” said Mizaistom at last. Leorio sighed in relief. “It’s not necessarily a secret, and hearing it from me will be quicker and less suspicious than you trying to find it out on your own. You see, the regional headquarters of the Hunter Association in Snaut Province, which communicates directly with the research team within the Solaris Basin Reserve, has received a report of a mysterious illness affecting those at the station. The details aren’t clear yet, but so far the illness seems, with our limited information, to have coincided with Kurapika’s miraculous recovery.”

Leorio was caught off guard by the sudden, defensive anger that surged up from inside him at the insinuation Kurapika had anything to do with some misfortune that’d befallen the station. He sat forward sharply, as if to stand, to lash out. Mizaistom hurried to explain more. As he spoke, however, his hand reached into his jacket pocket, ready with a card to defend himself if need be.

“I’m not saying I think Kurapika’s responsible,” said Mizaistom. “It’s not even clear if he’s been unaffected by the disease himself. But, before I respond to this new development, I need to make absolutely sure Kurapika cannot be considered in any way culpable for whatever’s occurred. I also need to have an idea of who or what the culprit could be, if it’s even a true illness, or if it’s something else entirely. I feel it prudent to remind you that, as of this time, we still haven’t located the mole within the Association. If it gets out that the last Kuruta Clan member is at the Solaris Research Station, people will latch onto that fact and accuse him of playing a part, regardless of the truth, because when people are scared enough of something they don’t understand, then that unknown thing is suddenly capable of every conceivable evil in the world.”

Instead of responding, Leorio looked down at his feet and considered his laces. No matter how frequently Kurapika entered into dangerous situations, Leorio always found himself surprised by it, as though it were something terrible and unprecedented. He always felt afraid, too. Every brush with disaster and near miss had to be building up towards something bigger, something inescapable and tragic. The luck Kurapika had been born with to survive the worst would one day run out spectacularly, and there was nothing Leorio could do to stop it.

“Kurapika currently possesses no ability that would present as an illness or infection, no matter how mysterious. I swear it,” said Leorio, still watching his feet. The words were loud and clear, but numb, recited in the same detached manner as if he were offering expert evidence before a tribunal. When he looked up, however, the glare he gave Mizaistom across the narrow desk between them left no doubt that such a distance wouldn’t be enough to protect him if Leorio sprang forward, quicker than Mizaistom could ever hope to draw a card.

“I believe you,” said Mizaistom. He allowed his professionalism to break and his sincerity to show through. Despite having zero evidence to corroborate what Leorio had just told him, Mizaistom personally wanted and chose to believe Leorio beyond any doubt. At the end of the day, they were on the same side. Both of them wanted to help Kurapika any way they could. 

  After a long, quiet pause and some reflection, the tension in Leorio’s jaw gradually relaxed, and he leaned back in his chair.

“Alright, then,” said Leorio. “Being a medical professional, all this about a purported illness at the station has naturally piqued my interest. Tell me what you know. I’d like to hear about what kind of a mess people might think Kurapika is capable of.”

“We haven’t got an official report,” said Mizaistom, busying himself by pointlessly shuffling through his stack of papers. “We’ve yet to send someone to conduct a formal investigation. For the moment, we only have the word, or should I say half-incoherent ramblings, of the head researcher, Dr. Tedeu Morro.”

“Kurapika hasn’t contacted you himself?”

“He occasionally responds to inquiries in parts, but what little he does communicate has grown more and more infrequent over the past few weeks.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘infrequent’? How long has it been since you’ve heard from him?”

“As of this morning, a little over six full days.”

“Has he fallen ill?”

“He says he’s well.”

“Does he have any reason to lie about that?”

“No immediately obvious reasons.”

“When’s he scheduled to update you on his health, his physical condition? He ought to still be recovering.”

“He’s already said there’s no notable change.”

“No, I mean a full check-up including a full report back to us. Something like what I just heard now. Isn’t the doctor at the station doing follow-ups?”

Mizaistom hesitated and let the papers slip from his fingers, back into a neat pile on the desk. “Dr. Claupacio Costu is incapacitated in some way,” he said. “Morro says he’s dead. Kurapika hasn’t confirmed it. I keep trying to ask him, but he never answers when I call. I’m forced to leave a message each time, and then he leaves me a message back, and what little he says never comes around to Dr. Costu.”

“You don’t answer yourself when Kurapika calls?”

“I have, but his timing is sporadic. I’ve intercepted him twice after a tremendous effort, but standing watch over the phone in my office isn’t the sort of thing I can afford to do every day. Also, when I do answer, he finds an excuse to end the call after only a few minutes. The first time he invented a task and said he’d call back, but never did. The second time, he was interrupted by somebody else and left.”

“Was it Costu or Morro?”

“I couldn’t tell. He hung up on me without explaining.”

So far, Leorio had been making each of his inquiries in a perfect, matter-of-fact manner, but his face had already paled. He knew from personal experience that Kurapika was notoriously difficult to contact, but Kurapika had no reason to blow off Mizaistom of all people, who was literally checking in on him for the sake of his mission. Kurapika wasn’t that fickle and unprofessional, not unless there was something truly wrong.

“If Morro and Kurapika are proving so unreliable, then why hasn’t anyone been sent out there to check on them?” asked Leorio. “Shouldn’t you send a team? Send anyone. Don’t just play phone tag and hope for the best like it sounds like you’re doing.”

“Actually, that brings me to my second reason for inviting you here,” admitted Mizaistom. He cleared his throat. “Would—”

“ _Yes_.”

“—you…. Sorry, what?”

“I will go myself.”

Mizaistom, taken aback, almost smiled at Leorio’s eagerness to volunteer. Mizaistom shared the same sentiment. Still, he swiftly regained his professional composure, hoping to make sure Leorio knew what he was getting himself into before the decision was made final.

“I understand you’re tied up in your medical research and that you’re scheduled to set up a new practice soon,” said Mizaistom. A touch of warmth had replaced the cool distance that seemed to settle in his tone whenever he dealt with Leorio. “You could also provide a recommendation if that would be better for you. Or, you can help me interview a few other candidates, people I believe we can trust—”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Leorio, holding up a hand to stop Mizaistom. “I’m the quickest and easiest choice, and I’m more than qualified for it. Also, my investment in the best possible outcome for Kurapika is guaranteed.”

Mizaistom nodded, considering the matter settled with only one look at Leorio’s face.. “You’ll need to perform a full investigation once you arrive,” he said. “You’re not just being sent for Kurapika. Your primary mission will be to figure out what exactly is happening at the station, since the basin is under the Association’s jurisdiction now. Whatever happens there is our responsibility.”

“I understand that,” said Leorio. “I’ll need a week to bring my current project to a feasible stopping point. I’ll delegate the rest of whatever can be done without me to Cheadle’s and my assistants in the Medical Science Division. As for my new practice, well, it’s not like I’ve really started down that road yet, so, it won’t be much of an imposition to put that on hold a while longer.”

“Good to hear,” said Mizaistom as though he were concluding a favorable job interview. “I appreciate how soon you can be available, and on such short notice. I want somebody who can head out to the basin as soon as possible. To be frank, I’m as worried for Kurapika as you are.”

The businesslike tone hardly matched the sentiment being expressed, causing Leorio to let out an incredulous grunt. Mizaistom let it pass. He reached for a file on his desk and checked that its contents were in order before holding it out. “Here’s our information on the Solaris Basin,” he said. “Don’t lose it. It probably goes without saying, but you should be careful who knows your plans.”

Leorio ripped the notes out of the notepad on his lap. He leaned over and exchanged the notepad for the folder over Mizaistom’s desk.

“Although this is a mission assigned to you from within the Hunter Association itself, we need to be careful. On my end, I’ll keep the team monitoring the investigation at the Solaris Basin Reserve limited. I’ll make sure none of them cross over with my official investigation into the Kuruta clan. Until we find out who’s after the last member, it’s better to limit anyone making independent connections between those two cases on their own.”

“You don’t even trust your own people?” asked Leorio with a sneer. He invited himself to the stapler on the end of Mizaistom’s desk.

“No. Of course not,” said Mizaistom. Leorio was amazed at his lack of hesitation in admitting this. “It’s impossible to do what I do and trust everyone who works for me. Even if I were to interview and handpick every Crime Hunter within the Association myself, there are far too many variables to account for. All I can control is what the people who work for me are assigned, and through that restrict what they know. Hence, why I have a team currently conducting research into the Kuruta themselves, as though I don’t know exactly who the Kuruta clansman within the Association is, and haven’t already secreted him away for his own protection. Only you and I know the full details of Kurapika’s identity and current location, and you’re only officially involved because Kurapika recommended you as someone he could trust. Someone smart, he said, who could keep things to himself. And who, if necessary, would assist me in anything I needed done to ensure his well-being.”

“He’s right,” said Leorio. “I’m your guy.”

Leorio dropped the stapler back onto the desk and adjusted his slipping teashades. After clearing his throat, he added, “But, I’ll leave you with some names for other people you can trust as well while I’m gone, people who are less suspicious than those Kurapika took the Hunter Exam with. Despite his outward appearance and demeanor, Kurapika isn’t as lonely and friendless as one might initially assume. He has a knack for forging the best kinds of friendships with people: The kinds that last. There are many people out there who will do everything in their power to help him, always.”

Though he’d been trying to look cool, a subtle shift, a flicker of movement across Leorio’s features, gave him away. His entire body was swept up in the change until the very atmosphere in the room itself was altered. He smiled knowingly as he sat back, almost in defeat, and shook his head. “But then,” he said, “I’m sure you already know how that is.”

Leorio’s gaze was firm as it flitted up and fixed itself on Mizaistom, silencing him before he could even think about speaking.

“But, try,” Leorio warned him, “not to let your immense concern for Kurapika’s well-being lead to more rash decisions on your part, okay? You’re the one who’s decided to step up and put Kurapika’s fate in your hands without involving anyone else. So, if anything happens to him that I can’t prevent because it takes you weeks to get around to even showing me a damn medical report, I’m holding you accountable, and believe me, you’ll have hell to pay for it.”

Leorio didn’t seem to care that he was announcing such blatant, hostile intentions directly to one of the highest ranked and most powerful Hunters in the entire Association. In fact, he relaxed as he spoke and even made a small, rotating gesture with the folder in his left hand, as if this were only a matter of light conversation to him. “But, of course,” he noted, “you already know all that, too. I haven’t stopped telling you this entire time. But, a reminder now and again doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“No,” said Mizaistom, conceding. “It doesn’t.”

“Good.”

Leorio pushed back his chair and stood. He stepped up to the desk, bearing down on the still seated Mizaistom at full, imposing height. Mizaistom was forced to lean back in his chair to continue looking Leorio in the face. Leorio pretended not to notice.

“I’ll get back to you with a list of who Kurapika can depend on besides just me,” said Leorio as he dropped his briefcase on Mizaistom’s desk and opened it to deposit the folder and medical notes inside. Mizaistom moved his empty coffee cup out of the way. “You’re lucky I haven’t stopped studying the Solaris Basin ever you told me Kurapika would be sent there, either, so, I’ll be more than adequately prepared when I arrive…unlike Kurapika was.”

Mizaistom nodded and didn’t answer. The briefcase shut with a snap and was back at its owner’s side with a hard jerk. A cup of pens and pencils rattled, but fortunately didn’t fall. Leorio, meanwhile, was already at the door.

“I’ll call before I arrive with the list so you know I’m on my way,” said Leorio, one foot out the door and turning back for only a brief moment. “It’ll probably be tomorrow. Wouldn’t want to waste any more time.”

“Goodbye, Leorio,” said Mizaistom. Not returning the farewell, Leorio left. Mizaistom, meanwhile, sighed and moved his empty coffee cup back to where it’d been.


	11. Medicine

Leorio stuck the clear adhesive end of a colored tab to the top corner of the page he was on before slipping the report back into its cover sheet. Further down from him in the cheap open seating of the ship’s divided hold, someone vomited, and the confined space they shared filled with the acrid, pungent reek of bile thinned with water and gruel. 

Leorio wrinkled his nose. He brought his feet up onto the barrel he’d been using as a seat, which made him look like an awkwardly perched, fussy egret with an old briefcase tucked under its wing. He opened his briefcase partway and slipped the report inside for safekeeping. He hoped and prayed there wouldn’t be a storm, but the hint of thunder far-off suggested otherwise.

Leorio paused before shutting the briefcase again. With a sigh, he slid a hand inside, feeling around until he located a familiar row of bottles and vials fixed with elastic bands along the lid. Opening the briefcase just enough to squint at the labels, he selected two of the bottles and removed them. He slipped these safely into his pockets before firmly latching the briefcase shut. 

Leorio checked the ground with a glance for contamination before setting his feet back down and standing. A moment later, he was at the vomiting man’s side, checking his vitals and querying him on his symptoms and whether or not he’d taken any medication before the ship had set out that morning.

“Are you some kind of a doctor?” asked the man’s wife, girlfriend, daughter…Leorio didn’t care exactly which. She was rubbing the man’s back to comfort him while making a disgusted face at the smell. It was clear enough that in some way the two belonged to each other.

“I am indeed some kind of doctor,” said Leorio. “I’m going to get the steward to bring you something to clean this mess up with. The smell itself will make more people ill if it lingers, and then we’ll be swimming in vomitus and all drown without having to leave the damn boat. Here,” Leorio reached over for a bucket and set it in front of the man, “have him vomit into this if he starts up again. I’ll bring sick bags when I come back. I don’t know why the stewards didn’t bring any down now when it’s getting rough outside.”

The woman nodded grimly and positioned the man’s head over the bucket as Leorio stepped away into the hall that separated the passenger area from the cargo hold. A few minutes later, his screeching voice could be heard berating someone and calling a group of people idiots. After a short commotion and bustle of activity, a handful of crewmembers arrived and began distributing seasickness bags and apologies to anyone who needed cleaning supplies already. Leorio marched in behind them, monitoring the effort with his arms crossed. 

“You really must be some kind of doctor to order the crew around like that,” said the same woman when Leorio came by to check on his patient.

“It’s in their own interests if they don’t want to mop the entire hold when we reach port. The officer in charge was on my side once he showed up.”

The woman agreed as she dropped a clump of damp paper towels into the bucket now being employed as a communal trash bin between her and her neighbors. Outside, the sound of rain started up. It pattered hard against the ship in sheets. The violence of the ship’s movement increased, but Leorio’s impromptu patient remained half asleep through it all from the sedative effect of the medication he’d been given. 

Fortunately, the first attacks of seasickness hadn’t triggered a chain reaction. The presence of a doctor taking charge seemed to soothe many who might’ve been prone to sickness, which was the best possible result, since half the battle combating seasickness for many was overcoming its underlying psychological cause. Leorio guaranteed the medicinal claims of an old woman giving out candied ginger drops to passengers around her, though in reality Leorio considered ginger to be little more than a placebo. If he smiled and said it was a good idea, the numerous sets of eyes watching him would believe it, and that belief would hopefully carry them through the literal storm.

The ship lurched to the side as Leorio was squatting on his heels besides a child with a low fever heading to the capital city of the region to visit a specialist. The force knocked him back, causing him to sit down hard on his tailbone. He swore at the sudden pain and put down a hand to steady himself, lest he start rolling away and everyone began to mumble disparagingly about what the matter was with the doctor. The father of the child reached out to catch him by the shoulder and helped him sit back up.

“Why are you traveling this cheap if you’re a doctor?” asked the man. “Doctors don’t take the overnight ferry. I’d be flying into Erson City on the mainland directly if I were you.”

“I’m headed further south than that,” said Leorio as he double checked nothing had fallen out of his pockets when he’d tumbled over. “Erson City and its airport are the closest airship stops to my destination, but with all the mountains, they’ll put me days out of my way, and I’m in a hurry.”

“To the south?” asked the man, his face scrunching up. He ran the backs of his nails thoughtfully over the stubble on his chin. “There isn’t much south. Are you some kind of international volunteer? They’re sending you to help out in some camp in the middle of nowhere?”

“It’s kinda like that.”

The man nodded, pleased to have divined the truth. “Well,” he said with a hint of warning, “prepare for the worse if they’ve got you really far out there. They say the woods are full of ghosts, dead people who’ve got lost. It’s creepy.”

“Yeah, I’ve read up on it.”

“And you’re not worried?” asked the man in astonishment. “Doctors are supposed to be smart. A smart person would show a little more concern for their well-being.”

“A smart person would know better than to believe there are ghosts or dead people traipsing around the woods,” said Leorio. He denied an unspoken offer from the man for a cigarette and pointed to the sign prohibiting smoking in the hold. The man grumbled and tucked his pack back into his shirt pocket.

“You can’t know everything,” said the man. He was bitter that he couldn’t smoke. “The road to hell is in the mountains.”

“That’s interesting,” said Leorio. The ship’s movement had calmed enough for him to stand again. Before rising, he added, with a thoughtful expression, “Come to think of it, I’ve been told to go to hell enough times already. Might as well.”

The man chuckled and adjusted the wet towel covering his child’s eyes. Leorio rocked forward, back onto his feet, and got up to make another round of the passenger area. He didn’t mind the work as he checked on those who called him over. Actually, he appreciated it. It kept his mind busy, diverted, focused on a tangible reality he could deal with and not the worst-case scenarios he’d been going over whenever he thought about what awaited him at his destination. For almost every minute of the trip so far, all he could do was reflect in a fruitless circle on the nature of the illness Mizaistom suspected had befallen the researchers at the Solaris Basin Research Station. Mysterious psychological stresses had pushed more than a few people working there to madness in the past. How would it be, then, for Leorio to arrive after a long and arduous journey, only to discover the small team stationed there had succumbed to the worst? How would he respond if he saw Kurapika, or that man Morro, raving and incomprehensible? What would be the next step? How would he handle the worst possible scenario he could imagine?

“Would you like a sweet?” asked the old woman with the tranquil look on her face who’d been giving out ginger sweets while remaining untouched by the illness of those who’d situated themselves around her. Leorio smiled and extended a hand. The movement of the ship might have calmed, but his stomach was rolling. He thanked her and unwrapped the candy, popping it into his mouth. It was surprisingly strong. He carried on his way through the cabin, turning the lozenge over in his mouth and trying not to grimace at the burning sweetness as it coated his throat. He had to admit it felt like medicine. Mint, honey, ginger; heat, cold, herbs and spices; a lot of things certainly felt like medicine when consumed. They’d make him better, maybe, if he believed in them hard enough. That was how medicine had worked when he’d been growing up, with everyone around him desperate and unable to afford anything other than what felt like medicine but really wasn’t.

Right now, staying busy was the best and only remedy for what was truly bothering Leorio. He finished making his rounds and found the barrel he’d been using as a seat earlier. The person sitting there moved away respectfully without Leorio having to ask. He used the barrel as a table to hold his suitcase while he deposited bottles of pills and the ginger candy wrapper inside. He then removed one of the numerous reports he’d been reading pertaining to the Solaris Basin. After taking a seat, he leafed through it and waited silently with the rest of the passengers for the storm to subside.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Kurapika leaned hard into the door to shut it behind him, his quaking knees threatening to give out at any moment. The shaky feeling in his chest and the blur of hair in his eyes disoriented him as he struggled to connect the erratic images flitting by like an unsteady film of all the familiar landmarks: his room, the hall, the freezer he’d just left but couldn’t stop revisiting in his mind’s eye, his own hands open in front of him, and his stumbling, shuffling feet.

He pushed away from the door and crossed the room. Through a series of freeze-frames, he stared into drawers and cabinets along the back wall, searching for something desperately and not finding it, before retreating hastily to the restroom to throw up. Bitter, burning bile coated his throat, but nothing came out. He spat into the basin until most of the taste was gone and slumped back against the opposite tiled wall, breathing hard.

He shouldn’t stay here like this, he told himself. He should get up. He should’ve gone to the office and called Mizaistom. He could tell him everything was okay. No problem. Kurapika could handle it. He’d already taken charge and put a damper on Dr. Morro’s more desperate plans for their situation. Everything was under control. Now, Kurapika just had to undergo an uncomfortable but necessary adjustment phase. Then, he could call Mizaistom and tell him, assure him, that everything would be okay.

Something fell in the other room. Kurapika sprang to his feet with a startled shout of warning he wasn’t confident would be heeded. He waited, but there was no other sound. Despite the roar in his straining ears, Kurapika wouldn’t have missed even the most subtle disturbance. He needed the silence and the stillness too much. He needed to be certain he was alone.

Cautiously, he stuck his head out to survey the room.

As he should’ve expected, it was empty. A stack of papers he’d pushed out of the way while searching the counter for…whatever it’d been…had toppled over. That was all. That was it.

Kurapika took a deep breath as he pulled himself back from the doorway. His reflection in the mirror above the sink didn’t surprise him. He knew what he looked like without needing to see the tinge of bright red as it slowly receded to a duller, dark crimson. 

The bitterness lingered in his mouth. He turned the handle of the tap and, in cupped handfuls, brought water to his mouth, slurping and swishing and spitting it out. He splashed his face once as well before he turned the handle back. As he patted his neck dry with his shirt, he wondered where the water glass beside the sink had gone. The instant he remembered, he froze and wanted to take the question back.

He entered the bedroom refreshed but still lightheaded. Mechanically, he collected the fallen papers and placed them on the counter. Next, he stepped aside to the bed and picked up the glass that’d rolled to the corner where the bedframe met the wall. Holding it up against the light, he could see a faint film of powdery residue clinging to its sides. He’d been too hasty mixing it, hadn’t allowed it all to dissolve well enough. He supposed maybe it’d been too much anyway. More than what was soluble. What a waste.

Kurapika placed the empty glass on the counter next to the papers. His knees were weak. Everything inside him was still shaking, rattling apart beneath skin that felt like a thick, fleshy a bag with no give, the only thing holding him all together. He knelt and let his head fall forward onto the tussled blankets of the unmade bed. With a small puff of a sigh, he turned to stare in the direction of the door without being at an angle to see it. 

He realized he was waiting.

Something would happen. It was inevitable. He’d been desperate, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d only bought a few minutes, maybe an hour, to himself. He should’ve called Mizaistom ages ago and told him the truth, except he hadn’t wanted to be forced to leave. Nor had he wanted to be forced to stay. He hadn’t been able to decide which would’ve been worse, and he didn’t want someone like Mizaistom making the decision for him.

It was impossible to hear what was going on outside in the hall, and yet, he knew there must be footsteps. They were soft, shuffling, uncertain and wary in the unfamiliar labyrinth of the station’s corridors. The directional signs were far away and difficult to read, which meant the long way back to Kurapika had to be felt out and guessed. Still, despite the difficulty and how quickly Kurapika outpaced them if he kept moving, the footsteps progressed. They’d have honed in on him by now. By now, he could even count them in his mind, one by one. He could get away for awhile, but he couldn’t escape.

Kurapika buried his face in his folded arms. The ends of his long sleeves and hair were still damp after washing his face. There was a light tap against the door and the sound of someone brushing against it to grab the handle and push it open. A second later it swung inwards. Kurapika clenched his fists, pulling at handfuls of his hair and clothing. After a few short steps, a small hand rested on his shoulder.

“What’s the matter?”

Kurapika didn’t answer. The voice grew concerned.

“Why did you leave me by myself? Did you want to hide to cry because you’re embarrassed?”

As though given the idea, Kurapika felt tears sting his eyes, but he forced the feeling down. The hand on his shoulder moved and was replaced by two weak arms embracing him from behind. Softer, finer hair brushed the fingers Kurapika had clenched at the back of his neck. The weight of a child’s head rested on the middle of his back between his shoulders, light, yet heavy on his heart like a stone.

“It’s okay. I don’t mind. I was a little scared you left, but I’m not mad. I hope you feel better. I’m sorry.”

The embrace tightened with a reassurance and warmth that overwhelmed Kurapika. After a moment, he relaxed, his fists loosening their balled up grip. He uncrossed one arm and reached back, slipping down behind him until his fingertips brushed the soft hair at the top of the child’s head, pressed lightly against the curve of the smaller skull. After confirming it was real, he pulled his hand away again. Tears began to stream in earnest as he hid his face, embraced by a stranger in the shape of an old friend, both impossible and inescapable.

“I’m sorry,” Kurapika whispered into his sleeve. “I apologize, I’m sorry…” he repeated without the nerve to specify what for, over and over, until he was too tired to repeat it anymore.


	12. Pairo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unless you make a collection, it's hard to designate "Part I" and "Part II" of the same one fic on Ao3. But, basically, consider from this chapter onwards to be Part II. There's a major shift in focus from Kurapika to Leorio, for the obvious reason being that Leorio hasn't been around until now. Then in like ten chapters or so we'll come back to Kurapika, which will sort of be the Part III or whatever.
> 
> Anyway! Here's ya'll's leopika reunion scene.

He’d had the proper protective gear sent ahead in order to travel as light as possible. A full suit, respirator and medical kit were waiting for him in an unopened box sealed with Nen at his last stop in the village below Mount Jegants. Unlike Kurapika, Leorio planned to make his journey through the woods of the Solaris Basin equipped for the worst. His first impression as he descended from the high cleft between the mismatched peaks of Jegants and Kavezuds was that he’d been overcautious. The way started off broad and sufficiently maintained. For the first few hours of travel, Leorio understood why Kurapika hadn’t gone back right away.

Inevitably, the path turned, and instead of continuing on bright and open, what should’ve technically served as the research team’s emergency escape route dwindled to a footpath. It wound its way indecisively between spindly saplings springing up from sunlit patches of waist-high grasses and shrubs. In broader clearings, the path disappeared entirely, and Leorio was forced to double back and circle the area until he found his way. All the while, he imagined Kurapika making the same trip and wondered why Kurapika hadn’t just given up.

On the surface, turning back seemed sensible. Kurapika would’ve been moving quicker at the start, while the way had been clearer, since his lighter clothing would’ve enhanced his speed. However, turning back would’ve cost him the entire day or longer, since the uphill journey would’ve been slow and more precarious, especially in the growing dark. Once he’d made it back up the cleft and over, there’d have been no guarantee that the village at the foot of Mount Jegants would let him enter still coated in toxins from the basin’s woods. With no safe way to decontaminate, Kurapika could’ve ended up exposed to something from his own clothing. A similar misfortune had befallen the Hunter who’d fled the basin alone without the proper departure gear, scarring his face and leaving him delirious on the mountainside until a search team sent from the capital found him moaning beside a stream a day later.

In addition to this, growing up in a remote, forested region had likely given Kurapika greater confidence in his ability to navigate the overgrown trails, and so, he’d chosen to trust more in himself than the remote possibility of assistance from the village he’d left behind. A little over a day later, he’d arrived to the research station in relatively good health. He’d made the correct decision, and yet, despite having undergone an impressive feat surviving the woods unequipped, a suspiciously vague accident had nearly finished him off hours afterwards.

For Leorio himself, there was no question of turning back. Though his protective gear slowed him down, his progression through the woods was more consistent and direct than Kurapika’s had been. Leorio also benefited from better tools to cut his way through the denser patches, as well as his own Nen ability. Rather than grappling with twisted branches and vines, he could simply break them off from a distance by emitting aura. He made a point to clear as much of the overgrown path as he could as he went along, just in case he arrived to the research station and found the situation there merited an immediate evacuation.

An oppressive feeling, like standing in the same room as an invisible giant, slowed Leorio’s monotonous progress and drew his attention towards the glittering surface of the lake. Every color sparkled at once except the ones a person would’ve expected from a freshwater reservoir. Leorio pressed on a little further, but couldn’t keep the lake out of the corner of his eye. He froze at the rim of a cliff where a bit of the overgrown path opened up, and for a long moment stood and stared. Was it animosity, wonder, or fear he was feeling as he frowned down at the contradictory motions of the current? Nearby him, the waves were languid, beach-like, at a glance normal, while further to the north, the water writhed as though it were full of slithering eels. Leorio looked away, concerned that if he stared too long, the strange phenomenon might take notice of him in return and respond.

Nearer to the lake and likely in more active use, the final stretch of trail leading up the promontory and towards the station proved to be comparatively clear and easily traversed. The station door opened with a reluctant whine after Leorio entered the access code, and he didn’t blame it. His first priority was to find a place to decontaminate and remove every last piece of the constrictive protective suit he’d come to loathe after a full day sweating and stumbling around inside it. After two false starts, he found a room with working equipment and underwent the familiar, methodical decontamination routine he’d studied and rehearsed in spare moments alone on his trip. Following such a strict procedure step-by-step calmed him down and allowed him to regain the focus he’d lost while being sweaty and miserable in the woods. One needed a goal, he reminded himself, or better yet, a whole string of goals, if one wanted to endure life within the station. 

The uniform closet outside the decontamination room held little that could accommodate Leorio’s stature. He doubted much of the clothing fit anyone at all, since everything was designed to be loose, with plastic clip fastenings for basic adjustments. He settled on something familiar, more medical in nature with a high collar and wide short sleeves allowing a full range of movement. The only pants that came close to fitting properly were made for people of his height or taller, which meant he had to pull the waistband halfway up his chest and tie it close before rolling up the legs and clipping them in place for good measure. He felt more at ease after the wardrobe change, subconsciously associating it with the rigmarole of suiting up for a day in the lab or making rounds in a hospital ward. Still, whatever state he found Kurapika and Dr. Morro in, he prayed it wouldn’t be one of dire medical need.

Leorio’s professional instincts sent him to the infirmary first to get his bearings. He needed to expose himself to something he knew, someplace where he’d feel at home. It was the only thing he could think to do to shake the disturbing sensation of the lake boring into him, learning his mind. On the way to the Solaris Basin, he’d read accounts of the psychological impact of the energy radiating from the lake, filtering through the station walls, and scratching imploringly at the conscious and unconscious minds of researchers. Leorio wasn’t a psychologist and couldn’t be said to have grasped every nuance of the information presented in those reports, but he had taken away the very important knowledge that he would never, not for a second, ever be truly alone with himself in the basin. Work, distraction, human interaction, activity…those were the only antidotes to the enfeebling effects of the lake on an individual’s mind. His first priority was to secure those things. He wondered grimly if Kurapika himself had been able to do so, especially considering the company he’d been forced to keep in the form of a known eccentric like Dr. Tedeu Morro.

The infirmary was in shambles. Leorio groaned, imagining all the work he had cut out for him as he surveyed the wide reach of the destruction. At least he wouldn’t end up bored or idle anytime soon. He stepped carefully from room to room, taking stock. The mess of blood and surgical items in one of the patient exam rooms didn’t bode well, but it was difficult to tell how long the room had been in that condition, if it were relevant to the current case or just something that’d been neglected for the hassle it’d have been to dispose of the biological waste properly. After less than an hour in the station, he already had the distinct impression that few things were ever gotten around to, standing biohazards be damned.

One tireless thought kept repeating in the back of Leorio’s mind in the meantime: Dr. Morro had said Dr. Claupacio Costu had died. It hadn’t been confirmed officially, but it was probably true. Leorio’s eyes narrowed in suspicion at the bloodstains. The splatter on the wall and floor suggested someone had been cut into suddenly, profoundly. They’d been awake and moving. 

Leorio corrected himself. Someone had been stabbed, not cut. 

Dr. Morro hadn’t said how Dr. Costu had died. 

As an added precaution, Leorio extended the reach of his En into the hall and waiting area before stepping out of the exam room. He extended it further, to its very limit, at last checking in on who else might be around.

It didn’t take much to locate the others. One, presumably Dr. Morro, paced in the vicinity of the central control room. Another lay still in a room upstairs. Leorio abandoned his original plan to meet with the station’s senior researcher for a briefing. Unsettled by the conclusions he’d drawn so far, it was impossible to wait any longer to see Kurapika. 

Perhaps over-optimistically, Leorio had hoped to meet Kurapika upon arriving. Now, he saw that Kurapika was asleep. It was as if Kurapika hadn’t been expecting anyone at all, though Leorio had arrived well within the projected time frame submitted to the station head. Had Dr. Morro never notified Kurapika that a replacement for Dr. Costu would be arriving? Leorio hadn’t been named specifically as the replacement, since Mizaistom wanted to complicate the efforts of anyone tracking Leorio’s movements, but Kurapika should’ve already known another Hunter would be joining the team. Perhaps, for his own reasons, Kurapika hadn’t cared. Instead, he’d left Dr. Morro to play the welcoming host as always, while he slept upstairs and blew the new arrival off.

Leorio sighed. It was sometimes easy for him to forget Kurapika’s taciturn nature around those he didn’t know or care to pay any mind to. Leorio would have to make first contact himself. With great purpose, he set out from the infirmary and headed for the nearest stairwell. He’d teach Kurapika to practice a tad more hospitality, so help him. The Solaris Basin wasn’t a place to cut yourself off from other people. One’s health and survival depended on avoiding lengthy isolation, and Kurapika was a fool if he believed this wouldn’t apply to him as much as anyone else.

The only sign of life in the empty halls was the scuttling, animatronic housekeeping robots. They paused to acknowledge Leorio in a friendly way as he passed. Most of the station’s robotic housekeepers had been coded with social gestures to provide a feeling of community and connection with the human staff. Leorio had read up on each and every response they could provide and how to elicit them, which took away a bit of the fun of figuring them out organically. Regardless, he answered the machines with a polite nod every time, letting himself be taken in a little by the illusion. It’d be better for him in the long run if he played along.

The doors to the living quarters didn’t lock. This wasn’t to say there weren’t any security features in place to deter unauthorized access of a team member’s room. The station itself recorded who entered and exited which parts of the station and when, making it impossible to pass by or enter any room, private or otherwise, without leaving a trace. This was why there were so many cameras and bothersome doors between segments of hallway that could only be opened with key codes or badges. It was the compromise early researchers had made in lieu of putting cameras in the bedrooms directly, or having wardens on rounds checking in on everyone like they were imprisoned, reminding them with every pass that no-one was trusted or safe. 

Lead medical officers were supposed to be the only people permitted to enter any room in the station at any time in order to respond to emergencies. In recent years, with the reduction in staff, the head doctor had become the only medical team member who carried a pass that could open all doors automatically, while those of lesser rank carried restricted passes only for the halls and common areas. Leorio hadn’t been able to locate any of these passes, restricted or otherwise, in the infirmary and was instead forced to pause and enter a code to access the stairwell when he reached it. He did so again at the door leading to the dormitory hall where Kurapika was sleeping. In short time, he was standing in front of the room itself and checked it with his En to make sure the room’s sole occupant was still laying in bed. He reminded himself he technically wasn’t breaking the rules of the station itself by entering, and, with a deep breath that tumbled out into a sigh, he opened the door and stepped inside.

Being an interior room, there were no windows. The light bar running along the junction of the ceiling and the wall had been dimmed, though not far enough to facilitate sleep. Kurapika lay in the bed like a corpse with his arms over his stomach, hugging a stack of crinkled papers close. Leorio was surprised to see he wasn’t sleeping, but instead staring off into the smooth expanse of wall directly beside him. It felt deliberate, Kurapika’s failure to look over to see who’d entered. Leorio, having assumed Kurapika would be sleeping, hadn’t announce himself before opening the door.

“Um, hello?” asked Leorio with a tentative softness, embarrassed for having barged in.

Like paint poured into a beaker of water, a slow crimson glow spread around the ring of Kurapika’s irises. His eyes went wide, making the change impossible to miss. They flashed in Leorio’s direction, then fixed themselves back on the wall, the murky crimson giving way to a brighter scarlet. 

For Leorio, it always felt a little intrusive witnessing what was often an unconscious, yet vivid portrayal of Kurapika’s thought process and the emotional reaction underlying it. He looked away respectfully, reminding himself that a mixed reaction from Kurapika was to have been expected after prolonged, near-total isolation in the Solaris Basin. If Kurapika hadn’t been in the right state to greet a newcomer when they’d arrived, any hope one might’ve harbored of a warm or typical reception was already lost.

Leorio turned to the attached bathroom, deciding he should check there to see if Kurapika had been prescribed anything by the previous doctor for his injuries. Leorio could use that information to begin his work on the medical aspect of Kurapika’s case.

“Oh shit,” yelped Leorio as he entered the bathroom and realized, to his utter shock, that someone else was there. His En had given him no indication of a third person in the station, and yet, there was definitely a boy here, sitting cross-legged on the floor as he turned the pages of a botany textbook. The boy glanced over the pictures rapidly as he went, not reading the words, but stopped and looked over, curious, at Leorio’s shout.

“Uh, sorry, kid,” said Leorio, embarrassed. “I wasn’t expecting someone. Who, uh, who are you?”

The boy smiled warmly and nodded in greeting but didn’t speak. He pointed past Leorio to the other room, and then, with a small, complicit smile, brought his finger back and held it up to his lips. Leorio was being shushed. He made a series of confused, but apologetic, nods in return before crouching down to the boy’s level and asking him again in a whisper what his name was.

“His name is Pairo,” said a tired voice behind Leorio. Kurapika was pulling himself up at last, ignoring the crumpled papers that slid off his chest to the floor. “So. You can see him, too, then,” he said. It sounded as if he’d been hoping otherwise. There was a faint tremor to his voice that coincided the intensity of his wide, still-glowing eyes.

“I mean, obviously, yeah,” said Leorio. “Where did he come from? Who brought a kid here? Are you looking after him for someone?”

“Where did _you_ come from?” asked Kurapika back. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and let them rest on the floor without putting his weight down. The look he gave Leorio was hard and calculating, accusing Leorio of something Leorio didn’t understand.

“I just got here a couple hours ago,” said Leorio. He stood, brushing off his clothes. “Sorry for intruding. I thought you were asleep, so, I let myself in to check on you, make sure everything was okay. It’s my job as the physician at this station.”

“They sent _you_?”

“Yes. Morro informed us that Dr. Costu died.”

“Dr. Morro did?”

“It’s the protocol. The station needs at least three people for long-term work, though two can manage in the interim. Dr. Costu had to be replaced as soon as possible. Didn’t Morro communicate that to you?”

“I don’t keep up with what Dr. Morro does. He’s always in the control room. He lives there.”

“So he seems to,” agreed Leorio. “I’ve researched his condition. In truth, it made me a bit concerned, realizing you’d be left by yourself most of the time. You, uh, seem to have company, though. So, that’s reassuring.”

Kurapika looked over as Leorio gestured in Pairo’s direction, though the boy was mostly out of view from Kurapika’s vantage point. A flicker of an expression between revulsion and pain crossed Kurapika’s face. 

“Pairo isn’t real,” said Kurapika. “He’s not Pairo.”

“What?”

“Pairo’s dead.”

Leorio pivoted slightly to get another good look at the boy sitting on the bathroom floor. Pairo turned the pages of his book, oblivious to the sudden change in Leorio’s regard for him. Leorio took in every vital sign he could make out from a distance, while wondering what Kurapika could’ve meant by the boy being dead.

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” said Leorio. “What’s going on here?”

As he turned around, he was faced with Kurapika now standing and brandishing the bladed end of his Judgment Chain. Leorio lifted his hands up and stepped away from the bathroom door so he couldn’t be cornered inside. Of all Kurapika’s potential reactions, Leorio hadn’t expected to end up being threatened with a Nen curse. He increased the protective shield of aura around his torso, particularly around his heart, just in case Kurapika decided to act.

“Uh, Kurapika…?”

“When did you show up?”

“I dunno. Around sunset. I didn’t check the exact time.”

“Do you remember how you got here?”

“Here as in your room? I was looking for you—”

“Pairo was looking for me, too, when he got here. Dr. Costu’s brother was looking for him.”

“Stop! You stop right there,” cautioned Leorio through gritted teeth as Kurapika took a small step forward. “Wait a damn minute. I don’t understand what you’re talking about. I came down from the pass along Mount Jegants early this morning. I walked over fourteen hours straight to get here. I’m tired, and I’m having some trouble understanding exactly what’s happening or why you’re sticking a Nen blade in my face all of the sudden.”

“You came through the woods?”

“Yes.”

“But there’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t look like someone who’s been out in the woods all day.”

“Well, obviously I cleaned up before poking around the station looking for you guys, since protocol dictates that—”

“The visitors have an unnatural healing factor,” said Kurapika over him. “They cannot die. Maybe it’s faster just to kill you and watch you come back.”

“Ah, okay,” said Leorio. “I think I see.” He lowered his hands slowly, but kept a close eye on Kurapika’s movements. “You don’t think I’m real. Is that it? You think I’m like that kid, Pairo, right, who you’ve just told me isn’t real, either?”

Kurapika gripped the short-handled end of the Nen blade tighter.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Leorio. “If you’re actually planning to kill me to find out if I’m real or not—which I doubt you’d do anyway, but still—don’t even think about it. I don’t know how I’m supposed to prove it to you, but I’m indeed Leorio Paladiknight, the one and the only, in the flesh, the exceedingly real deal. I’m also extremely mortal. If you somehow manage to kill me, I don’t wake up.”

There was a flash of doubt in Kurapika’s eyes. Gradually, he brought the blade down to a defensive position and backed away, shaking his head. Leorio didn’t follow, but allowed Kurapika to retreat as far as he wanted and was able to in the confined space of his living quarters. 

Pairo appeared in the doorway at that moment, looking curiously between Leorio and Kurapika. The curiosity soon gave way to worry. Kurapika caught Pairo’s eye and shot him a strained, thin smile utterly incongruous with his taunt, defensive posture. Pairo didn’t seem very reassured. Kurapika turned back to Leorio, the false smile going out in an instant.

“Somehow, these visitors sense a person’s most frequent locations and move between them endlessly until they find you,” said Kurapika, gesturing to Pairo. “If you yourself just got here, how did you find me so soon? How did you know where I was? This is the fourth room I’ve used since I arrived. I’m assigned to one on the first floor. Why didn’t you head straight to that one?”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Leorio. “Why would I waste time looking up room assignments when I can use En? Didn’t you sense it? Or did you forget what Nen is while you’ve been cooped up here all these months?”

At the mention of En, the color drained not only from Kurapika’s face, but also from his eyes. The Nen blade he’d been clutching slipped from his fingers. It would’ve clattered against the floor had it not flickered out of existence a moment before impact. Kurapika followed it down to the ground, and Leorio felt safe enough to draw near. At last, Kurapika had come to his senses.

“Are you alright?” asked Leorio as he knelt down.

“I’m sorry,” said Kurapika. “You’re right. They haven’t got aura. They can’t use Nen. I’m sorry. I could’ve killed you for something stupid.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” said Leorio quickly. “It’s not the first time you’ve waved a weapon in my face and threatened me. Only, you should know better by now. You’re dreaming if you think you can kill me that easy. I can take you.”

Kurapika frowned at Leorio’s forced, lighthearted tone. “But, seriously,” he insisted. “What was I thinking? I mean, I felt your En earlier, but here…it’s hard to tell things apart. It’s hard to distinguish…to see….”

“It’s okay. If it’s any consolation, I was expecting something like this before I got here. Or well, not precisely ‘this’,” said Leorio. The boy, Pairo had just appeared at his side, face crumpled in concern for Kurapika. “I’m still not entirely sure what’s happening, but you being disoriented, stressed out, or just generally out of sorts was entirely within my expectations.”

“I feel like an idiot,” said Kurapika. He brushed away Leorio’s hand reaching for his shoulder and stood up. Leorio stood, too, but didn’t follow as Kurapika went to the bed to sit down.

“Has the rest of the staff been similarly affected by these...phenomena?” asked Leorio with a nod towards Pairo.

“Do you mean Dr. Morro?”

“Yes.”

“I have no idea. The last time we spoke was when Dr. Costu’s brother showed up. Dr. Morro thought we should try to dispose of it, since it was our only visitor at the time—or, well, it was the only one inside the station, is what I think was what Dr. Morro was actually implying. But, really, you can’t. You can’t get rid of them. They come, and they find you, and you can’t get away for long.”

Pairo spoke up, saying something that could’ve been a word, or just a consoling sound. He went to Kurapika and pulled himself up onto the bed to sit beside him. Leorio stared at them. For a while, Pairo patted Kurapika’s shoulder and offered reassurances in a language Leorio didn’t know. Kurapika slumped down, getting worse rather than better, defeated and resigned to his fate. The rolled up sleeve of Pairo’s oversized shirt, another from the station’s stock of unused uniforms, had begun to unravel. It obscured the small hand Kurapika reached up and took while saying something that got Pairo to stop talking.

“Who’s the kid? Where did he come from?” asked Leorio.

“He’s Pairo. I don’t know. Dr. Morro says the lake sends them.”

“So, Morro is familiar with this?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m assuming Dr. Costu was affected, as well.”

“Yes.”

“Did it kill Dr. Costu?”

Kurapika was quiet.

“Was Dr. Costu killed?”

Slowly, Kurapika shook his head.

“Is Dr. Costu dead?”

Kurapika nodded. 

  “Well, what happened, then?” asked Leorio. “An accident? Or was he sick?”

Kurapika shrugged and turned to look at Pairo without meeting the boy’s eyes. He said something quietly to him in their mutual language, and Pairo nodded before hopping down from the bed. He stumbled awkwardly in his hurry, almost tripping over the helm of his oversized clothing. A second later, he disappeared into the bathroom. Leorio heard the sound of the tap being turned and a glass being filled with water. A drawer opened and rattling pills were shaken out from a bottle. Kurapika pulled himself farther into the bed and sat back, covering his eyes with his palms.

“Dr. Costu killed himself,” said Kurapika. “We put him in the freezer, his brother and I, and that’s where he and his brother are now, together. It never leaves his side, even when he’s dead it won’t. It doesn’t know what else to do, maybe. Occasionally, it comes out and looks for him because...I don’t know. I think it forgets. You have to remind it ‘no, no, Dr. Costu is downstairs’ and then it remembers exactly where he is, and it goes back. It freezes to death and it resurrects, over and over. I’ve watched it. I had Pairo monitor its pulse while I timed it coming and going. But, it’s never going to die. Pairo won’t, either.”

Pairo came back and stood next to the bed, waiting patiently with a glass of water and two bright pills nestled in a cupped hand. Leorio eyed the pills with suspicion, but Kurapika dismissed his concern while sitting up only enough to drink from the glass.

“I have a headache,” said Kurapika before swallowing the medicine. “This is just aspirin or paracetamol or something, I forget which.” He finished the glass and murmured something to Pairo as he handed it over. Pairo carried it away to the bathroom while Kurapika laid down, bringing his blanket up to his chest and settling in. 

“Go talk to Dr. Morro,” said Kurapika with his eyes shut. “He’s our welcoming committee. I’m going to rest. I’ll be up in a couple hours. I don’t sleep the whole night, and Pairo…I’m not sure he sleeps at all. He might not need to. I don’t know. He’s always up when I am. Anyway, go check on Dr. Morro. I’m tired.”

Normally, Leorio would’ve made a passive aggressive remark about how it was great to see Kurapika again, too, but he only felt regret mingled with pity for Kurapika’s situation as he’d come to understand it. It was time to leave, just as Kurapika said. It was the head medical officer’s duty to assess Dr. Morro’s condition, as well. He couldn’t selfishly spend all his time on Kurapika.

Pairo hadn’t returned after taking the glass away. Curious, Leorio went to peek into the bathroom. The boy was sitting there again in the same position Leorio had first encountered him, cross-legged and flipping idly through a botany textbook. His dark, lightless eyes traveled swiftly and uncomprehendingly over the page, as if expending the effort to really look at it was too great a burden. It was likely the boy didn’t speak the language the book was in, though Leorio suspected there might be something else happening, too. Upon closer inspection, he saw Pairo’s eyes weren’t only dark, they were clouded, unfocused, with a faraway look that had nothing to do with boredom or wandering thoughts.

“Hey, psst,” whispered Leorio. Pairo looked up in Leorio’s direction, squinting but without focusing his eyes on any particular part of Leorio’s face. Leorio smiled. Pairo smiled back good-naturedly. So, he wasn’t totally blind, then, but his vision was still severely compromised.

“Take Pairo with you, see if he’ll go,” said Kurapika from the bed. He said something to Pairo next. Pairo startled at the suggestion and hopped up. He tripped while trying to race around Leorio’s legs, but caught himself on the door frame and staggered back into the main room, chattering away anxiously as he went. A restrained argument broke out between him and Kurapika with Kurapika covering his face with his arm and refusing to look over even as Pairo pulled at his sleeve and kept repeating variations of the same handful of unhappy and often reproachful words.

“I’ll come back,” said Leorio, making for the door. Pairo was nearly in tears, and it made him uncomfortable. “As soon as I’m done with Morro, I’ll be right back.”

Kurapika brought his arm down from his face and sat up to glare at Pairo. He jerked his wrinkled sleeve from the boy’s grasp, and Pairo admonished him for it. Kurapika snapped angrily at him and pointed at Leorio, but Pairo clung to the sheets of the bed and pleaded with Kurapika not to send him away. Leorio beat a hasty retreat into the hall and shut the door firmly behind him. He felt the voices still rumbling through the walls, but reminded himself that this was impossible. It was only the echo playing his mind.

“Pairo,” Leorio recited quietly to himself. Something about the name was familiar, but too distant to be more than a vague feeling. He headed down the dormitory hall, typed in the code to open the door, and stepped out into the stairwell. It was time to check on his next patient, to find Dr. Morro and discover whether he was alone or, like Kurapika, had unexpected company of his own.


	13. Alone Here

Leorio was just stepping out to the staircase landing when he caught the sound of fumbling, uneven footsteps approaching. He held the door open behind him automatically and looked back to see Pairo hurrying to catch up.

“Kurapika,” said Pairo, panting as he slowed to a stop. He pronounced the name in a manner that would’ve been unrecognizable to Leorio out of context. Pairo motioned behind him, back in the direction of Kurapika’s room before making a gesture of someone speaking. He pointed at Leorio next. “Leorio.”

“Kurapika told Pairo to go with Leorio?” asked Leorio. “Yeah. I assumed as much already. Guess you lost the argument.”

Pairo furrowed his brow, caught between agreeing and not sure he should, since the last part of what Leorio had said hadn’t had anyone’s names in it. Leorio held out his hand for Pairo to help guide him down the stairs, but Pairo made a reproachful sound and refused. He took Leorio’s hand in both of his and pressed it emphatically to Leorio’s side, patting it to keep it there before letting go. Leorio laughed at the unspoken but sound rejection.

“Let’s go, then,” said Leorio, heading down. Pairo followed, looking unapologetically displeased at losing his argument with Kurapika. He kept a cautious distance from Leorio, like a silent, resentful shadow. When they reached the hall encircling the control room, he leaned against the wall and waited as Leorio entered the code to open the control room door, already familiar with what would happen next.

“Dammit,” muttered Leorio on the third attempt. He was acquainted with Dr. Morro’s case file and debilitating level of paranoia, so, he hadn’t fully expected the code he’d been given for the door to work. It disturbed him to see he’d been right. After a day spent walking through the basin and his stressful encounter with Kurapika, Leorio wasn’t in the mood for much patience and understanding. He hit the door with his hand several times in lieu of knocking, and then pounded on it with his fist for good measure when no-one answered.

“Morro!” he called. “It’s Dr. Paladiknight. We need to have a talk.”

“There is nothing to talk about,” whispered a scratchy voice from an intercom box down the hall. Pairo was holding the receiver out to Leorio, having gone to it first while Leorio was preoccupied abusing the door. Leorio wondered how many times Kurapika had been in this exact situation. Pairo waved the receiver at Leorio impatiently, and Leorio came over to take it.

“Let me inside. I have to check on your condition. You were already notified I’d be performing an investigation here. Part of that investigation involves an assessment of your health. Prolonged, elevated stress levels can result in several conditions that—”

“And the other part?” interrupted Dr. Morro. “The other part of the investigation is a criminal investigation, correct?”

Leorio sighed. “Not necessarily,” he said. “I’m primarily trained in the capacity of a medical professional, so—”

“He took his own life,” said Dr. Morro, ignoring Leorio. “If anyone, blame the damn basin. Can Hunter’s arrest bodies of water? Can you try the entire basin in your Association courts? Is there an off-planet containment system to imprison geographical formations, where they can serve time and make an example of themselves to other delinquent hills and valleys?”

Leorio didn’t have an answer. It didn’t sound like Dr. Morro would’ve been interested in one anyway.

“I’m fully aware of the psychological burden borne by those in regular contact with the forces of this particular region,” said Leorio with forced patience, as though he were dealing with a particularly troublesome patient on his examination table. “However, nothing criminal has occurred here that I’ve seen, so, don't concern yourself with that aspect. I’m not out to get you. I’m not here to wring out confessions. I’m a doctor, first and foremost. I’m here to help, and to help, I need to see you. You need to let me in.”

“I’m healthy, doctor. I’m fine.”

“Self-reporting on what you personally perceive to be your current condition won’t suffice. I’ll still need to see you myself.”

There was a scratch of breath over the microphone as Dr. Morro laughed. Leorio gritted his teeth and glared at the door.

“Why bother?” asked Dr. Morro. “Give it a few days. A week, max. At that point, you’ll be no better off than Costu or that kid they sent ahead of you. Your examinations won’t mean a thing, because you won’t be fit to investigate anything at all. You’ll be holed up in a new room every other week, or firing up a syringe spur of the moment if you can’t get away on foot. They’ll send more and more after you. You know how it goes, swallowing the spider to catch the fly, swallowing the bird to catch the spider, then a cat, then a dog and—”

“Are you alone in the control room?”

“…what?”

“Are you alone?”

There was a pause. 

“Why?”

“Tell me yes or no,” said Leorio. “Are you or are you not alone in there?”

There was a much longer pause. Leorio strained to hear something from the other end, but Dr. Morro had covered the microphone.

“You just wait,” growled the scratchy voice at last.

“I’m sorry?”

“You wait,” Dr. Morro repeated. “It’s a stupid question: Am I alone? Are you, alone, Dr. What’s-Your-Name? Isn’t there something, someone inside that you carry with you everywhere like a load on your shoulders? Are you alone? You are not. They perhaps told you as a child that the people who are gone, who depart from the world, are always with you. Loved ones, enemies, our past selves. Too many voices and faces following us, never letting us forget how slipshod our own inner construction is, assembled from the many parts of who we’ve encountered in our lives. You are never alone. I am never alone. There is no way for such a thing to be possible. There’s too much of everyone else inside, all clamoring….”

Again, Leorio insisted, cutting him off, “Let me into the control room.”

“For what?” scoffed Dr. Morro. “To keep each other company? If you’re lonely now, don’t worry. No-one is lonely here.”

“Open the door.”

There was a click, then silence. Leorio placed the receiver back into its holster. He’d forgot Pairo was there and startled when he felt a gentle tug at his sleeve.

“Pairo,” he said with a sigh, squatting down closer to Pairo’s level. He pointed back to the door they’d come in through. “Kurapika. Go back to Kurapika.”

Pairo wavered, but Leorio swung his arm out in a wide gesture to make it perfectly clear that he was saying Pairo could leave. Leorio didn’t need a sullen shadow that didn’t understand a word he said. It was better the boy left. Maybe he could keep an eye on Kurapika, even if Kurapika hated it. 

Eagerly, Pairo nodded and trotted back the way they’d come. Leorio watched him enter the code for the hallway door, but his mind was wandering elsewhere. He continued to stare at the door for a long while even after Pairo had gone. 

Alone (or was he?), Leorio returned to the infirmary. The lacquered darkness of the windows he passed on the way threatened to fill suddenly with something, anything, terrible things he couldn’t imagine and didn’t wish to glimpse. A wave could wash over them all in the dark, engulf the station, flow in through every crack, bypassing the mesh of the air filters. In its spray it’d carry a toxin more potent than anything biological contained in the basin, and the station’s flimsy shell would crumple as it was tossed aside. All that would remain in the end would be Lake Solaris, triumphant.

Leorio realized he was standing in place, doing the last thing he’d thought he wanted as he stared listlessly out a window and observed nothing but his own reflection. He roused himself and came back to reason. This line of windows didn’t face the lake at all, but rather the woods. If the water somehow rushed up to meet him, it wouldn’t be from this direction.

He ran into someone in the hall outside the infirmary, a tall man in damp clothes, walking stiffly. Leorio hailed the stranger as naturally as possible, all the while feeling as if he’d crossed wires with someone and got caught in their dream. The man stopped and faced Leorio. Leorio didn’t know him.

“Where’s Satta?” 

Leorio remembered how he’d said he’d return to see Kurapika once he was done speaking with Dr. Morro. 

“In the freezer,” said Leorio, only vaguely recognizing Claupacio Costu’s second name, but deducing that this man in scrubs couldn’t be anyone other than the doctor’s unkillable brother. The man’s eyes lit up with slow understanding. Leorio wondered how much of him was alive and how much was dead. If Kurapika had been telling the truth, maybe the man hadn’t fully thawed out yet. Or, perhaps he never froze. Leorio would have to touch the man’s skin to find out, but he wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.

“Ah, yes,” said the man slowly. He turned at the same time, already forgetting Leorio, where he was, or what his purpose might’ve been beyond locating his brother, the corpse, tucked away in an icy freezer below the station. As abruptly as he’d appeared, the stranger was gone, hardly more than a ghost.

Wet tile squeaked under the soles of Leorio’s slip-proof lab shoes. (Was he alone?) Every light in the infirmary was on. He wondered if they’d been touched since the previous doctor had died. Unconsciously, he went around to turn off whatever was unnecessary, keeping the most littered spaces illuminated for safety. He noted that there were no windows in the infirmary, and he agreed with it.

According to the clock on the wall, Leorio had been awake for over nineteen hours straight. The time seemed to fall on him all at once, and he sat down heavily in the nearest desk chair. 

“What’s going on here?” Leorio asked no-one. Maybe it was directed towards himself, or maybe it was for some stranger that would come tip-toeing out of the shadows, leaving him wide-eyed and frazzled, holding up his friends with knives within five minutes of meeting them, despite it being well over a year since they’d both been in the same room together. 

Leorio stopped himself before he started down the spiral of trying to guess what may or may not be coming for him. The onset, he supposed, would be sudden, but there was no guarantee it’d affect him the same way. He wasn’t an original part of the experiment that the lake had set up within the station. He was from the outside. He was separate. He was more worried about Kurapika than anything else, so, what point would there even be to haunt him? Kurapika alone maxed out Leorio’s entire capacity to fret and fume and regret. What else inside him was more intense than his limitless fear and concern for his friends?

“Stop it, idiot,” he warned himself. These weren’t the sorts of thoughts he ought to be entertaining. He was headed in the wrong direction. (He wasn’t alone.)

“I should just go to sleep already,” he concluded. He groaned and rubbed the back of his neck before getting up and moving to an empty patient room nearby. For the time being, he was impartial towards where he slept. Peeling away the coat of his uniform to use as a blanket, he rolled onto one of the hard and not especially welcoming beds, and soon slipped off to sleep. The probing fingers, the eyes of the lake, surged forward as his mental defenses dropped, but Leorio slumbered all the same, too tired to fight or care.

In the morning maybe he’d be alone (he wasn’t alone), or maybe there’d be some solid specter from his distant memories waiting for him at the foot of the bed, eyeing him attentively, and bringing him aspirins and glasses of water. Tirelessly, it would reach out for his hand in a moment of distress only to be cast aside as he remembered this person didn’t really exist. They hadn’t come back at last; this wasn’t a reunion. When people died, they were gone, forever.


	14. Histopathologically

“I won’t ask you who he is.”

“I don’t care either way,” said Kurapika. He watched as Leorio double checked the vials he’d prepared to collect samples. “Exhibiting tact and sensitivity on this matter is only going to muddle communication between us. And anyway, you can probably already guess who Pairo is. You aren’t stupid.”

“Yes, but I don’t need to hear more about it than what I’ve already inferred,” said Leorio. He wasn’t sure on which side of the line between considerate distance and cold dismissiveness he was treading, but he pushed forward nonetheless. “If it’s truly something that straightforward, I don’t need to ask you anything else. His name is Pairo, and that’s all. Right now, I only need you to translate for me. Explain the test to him so that he can consent to it with full understanding.”

Kurapika swept a lock of knotted, uncombed hair out of his eyes. It’d still been wet when he’d arrived to the infirmary thirty minutes after Leorio had gone up to his room and announced to him through the communication panel next to the door that he needed help cleaning up downstairs. 

“You don’t really need his consent,” said Kurapika, letting his hair fall forward again, obscuring half his face. “I tell him to do it, and he does it. He won’t care.”

“I’d prefer his consent anyway. Now, please, go and explain it to him.”

Kurapika turned to Pairo, who was sitting nearby with his legs dangling over the edge of the examination table Leorio had set him on a moment ago after requesting permission to pick him up in pantomime. His neutral but pleasant expression shifted as his listened to Kurapika. There was an intelligent look in his eyes. He asked a few questions Kurapika elected to answer on Leorio’s behalf, which irritated Leorio. Leorio grumbled and looked over his supplies once more before rolling back the longer cuffs of today’s uniform and slipping on a pair of gloves. A moment later, Kurapika informed him Pairo had consented, and he could go ahead.

While tidying up the infirmary earlier that afternoon, the stilted and infrequent conversation between Leorio and Kurapika had somehow arrived to the topic of what Pairo actually was. Leorio encouraged Kurapika to think of Pairo as a thing that existed. It wasn’t the person Kurapika had known, but it wasn’t a ghost sent to haunt him, either. It was tangible. An outside force had deliberately constructed it. Kurapika should see it as he saw a film or snapshot, something that, though its subject matter evoked buried traumatic feelings and sickening dread, wasn’t in itself guilty or out to get him.

Kurapika insisted that of course he saw Pairo in this way. He understood. His rational mind got it. The rational mind always got it, but emotions always drowned the rationality out. It was easier to be an idiot and upset, wasn’t it, than to stay sensible and smart? Kurapika couldn’t control himself, so, he acted like a fool.

Leorio had rounded on Kurapika after he’d said this, stopping what he was doing to tell him, firmly, that an emotional reaction didn’t make someone a fool. It was healthy. A rational and controlled reaction would’ve been atypical and a cause for alarm. Thank god Kurapika hadn’t been perfectly rational or controlled, ever. Thank god he wasn’t as bad off as that.

Kurapika had been taken aback. He’d pursed his lips and didn’t say another word for a long while. In an effort to dissipate the tension, Leorio had suggested they test Pairo. It might give Kurapika some unexpected piece of mind to know what Pairo was literally made of. It might be easier to separate his feelings from what was happening if the material Pairo was comprised of turned out to be unusual.

“Why do you even bother with that?” asked Kurapika. Leorio, who was disinfecting the smooth underside of Pairo’s forearm with rubbing alcohol, shrugged but didn’t look over.

“With what?”

“Using real medicine and everything for this,” said Kurapika. “Isn’t it wasteful? It’s not like he’s going to get an infection and die. He can’t die.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Leorio. Kurapika made a face, but waited to hear him out. “He _can_ die, but he’ll regenerate. I’m reducing the probability of any unnecessary pain and suffering. Doctors don’t fight death every time they treat someone. There are plenty of other things a person can suffer from that require treatment and prevention, even if the person isn’t going to die. Or, if they can’t.” Leorio smiled at Pairo and patted his shoulder. “This little kid shouldn’t have to suffer needlessly. Right, Pairo?” 

Pairo smiled in recognition of his name while Kurapika shook his head and turned away. Leorio and Pairo exchanged glances behind his back, neither one surprised. Leorio resumed his work, extracting blood samples and emitting specialized Nen particles to keep them from coagulating as he leisurely prepared histological smears. Pairo observed the process over his shoulder, intrigued. He tried to ask a question, but Kurapika wouldn’t translate for him. Instead, Kurapika ordered Pairo to stay with Leorio and walked out of the room for fresh air. This time, Pairo didn’t argue with him. 

“Okay,” said Leorio once the slides were dried and fixed. Pairo leaned forward excitedly, and Leorio waved him over to hop down from the examination table and sit next to him at the improvised lab counter along the wall. “Let’s see what you’re made of, Pairo.”

Though he knew Pairo couldn’t understand him, Leorio launched into a short course in hematology and the basic rules of how to use a compound microscope. He had Pairo tripping over the pronunciations of erythrocyte, leukocyte, and thrombocyte in no time and identifying examples of them whenever Leorio sat back and invited him to peer into the eyepiece.

“So far, everything checks out,” said Leorio as he navigated the suspended cells in his sample. “Looking good,” he murmured. “Pretty normal."

He tried another, differently treated slide, but again, there was nothing much out of the ordinary. Whatever Leorio was hoping to discover, the current level of magnification available to him wasn’t enough. Subtly, he moved on to a further level that employed a modified Nen particle technique developed for histological investigations in settings without access to expensively outfitted medical labs. Still, the results remained typical.

“Leorio,” said Pairo, tapping his shoulder after Leorio had begun hogging access to the microscope for several minutes. Sensing the building blocks that made up cellular components with his Nen rather than his eyes required intense focus. He apologized to Pairo and distractedly explained himself as he continued to stare into the microscope, forgetting the language barrier that rendered him incomprehensible. 

“When it comes to looking at very small things, my specialty runs closer to biochemistry, not nuclear physics,” he said. “I can fine-tune my Nen to the point where I can, with great effort and an outrageous amount of Manipulation applied to your everyday, run-of-the-mill, widely available compound microscope, kinda read the chemical composition of the twenty-one proteinogenic amino acids found in people. So, I mean, perhaps I can try to go further than that…” his voice trailed off as he adjusted the stage, “…though honestly I’m not sure how well I’m going to even comprehend what I find at that level. Like I said: not a nuclear physicist, just a guy who wants to try to look at amino acids.” 

Leorio paused, biting his bottom lip without a sound as he thought deeply. It seemed as if he’d sit back soon and give Pairo a turn to look through the microscope, and Pairo leaned forward eagerly in anticipation. Leorio, however, didn’t notice. He shrugged once, relaxed, and then continued to speak in the same distant, distracted manner as before without moving away from the eyepiece.

“Or, well, perhaps that’s not the best way to put it: ‘ _look_ ’. I’m not really ‘looking’, per se. Once you start using Nen to ‘see’ beyond physiological limits, it becomes a challenge understanding the results. It’s more like echolocation than optical vision. Instead of sound waves reflecting back from objects, you’re seeking out chemical markers, molecules—by which I mean polyatomic ions. I was working with the strongest microscopes in the world for months to arrive to just the amino acid chains. Currently, I’m working to developed the ability into one that also uses Transmutation, which I’m considerably less great at than Manipulation, but hey, if I could get just a trickle of Nen to function as electrons I can control in absence of a vacuum, then, histopathologically speaking, well….”

The persistent tug Leorio hadn’t noticed on his sleeve intensified, and he paused in his muttering to look down at Pairo shaking his head and holding a finger to his lips. He was, in the only way he knew how to convey it, asking Leorio to stop talking.

“Ah…well, histopathologically speaking, it’d be nice, and people smarter than I am might have a good use for it,” Leorio concluded. He allowed himself a final, cursory glance over the current slide while privately accepting that, whatever Pairo was constructed from, it was beyond even his most heightened capabilities to observe.

“Well, then,” said Leorio, running his hands through his hair and leaning back on the stool. “Well, then. That’s that.”

Pairo look at him expectantly, but Leorio shrugged.

“I guess…I guess we need to get further, break down what we can see to an atomic level,” he said. “But how the hell could we…?”

“There are science labs,” said Kurapika, surprising both Pairo and Leorio with his sudden reappearance. Leorio spun around on his stool to look at him. “I’m not sure it’s your skill set,” Kurapika continued, “but they’ve got stronger equipment in the science labs than here in the infirmary. I’m sure there’s at least one electron microscope somewhere. Someone at some point in time probably thought that that’d be a good idea. Could you figure out how to operate a piece of equipment like that? I’m not taking you if you’re just going to fumble around and break it.”

“I’ve trained with the Hunter Association’s Science Corps, Kurapika. I’m not going to break it.” 

“It still might not be what you’re used to. It might not even work. Stuff hasn’t been updated here in years, and as you’ve no doubt already seen, maintenance of the station and its resources has fallen behind.”

Leorio was unfazed. “When you apply Nen to enhance the capabilities of scientific equipment, the equipment itself primarily functions as a conduit to help focus the…"

Leorio trailed off, distracted, as he caught sight of Pairo at his elbow yawning. Pairo looked between Leorio and Kurapika, bleary-eyed and bored. 

“Actually, it’s getting late,” said Leorio. He yawned into his fist, having caught it from Pairo. “I think we can save all that stuff for tomorrow. I have one more exam I’d like to get out of the way before dinner.”

“What difference would it make? The equipment here isn’t strong enough to see anything. The results will be the same.”

“Oh, no, I’m done examining Pairo for now. Since you’re back, I figured I’d move on to you.”

Kurapika froze. “You don’t think I’m also…?”

“I mean a medical exam,” said Leorio, collecting the slides to put them away and directing Pairo to reset and turn off the microscope in the way Leorio had shown him to do earlier. “I mean a health check. Relax.”

“I’m fine,” insisted Kurapika. He crossed his arms. “Really, I feel fine.”

“Even if you feel fine, you’re overdue for a follow-up. I received the report you made of your traumatic exposure to nearly three-quarters of all known toxic elements within the Solaris Basin. I also got up early this morning and went over Dr. Costu’s own record of your case. Now, it’s time for a status check. You told me your healing chain can’t always cure something you aren’t aware you’re suffering from. So, even if you can repair yourself, you still need a medical professional to assess you.”

Kurapika looked out the open door of the examination room, trying to find an escape. “I’m tired now,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

“It won’t take long using my methods. I’ve streamlined the process with Nen to maximize the amount of patients I can see in a day. It’ll be over in minutes.”

Kurapika, already near the door, left the room without a word. Leorio gaped at the empty space Kurapika left behind. He was on the verge of calling Kurapika immature and threatening to drag him back, when Kurapika reappeared cradling a book in his arm. He presented the book to Pairo, telling him to read it in the reception area of the infirmary. Once Pairo was gone, Kurapika shuffled over to the examination table and sat down, submitting himself to Leorio’s care.

“Do I need to undress or anything? There isn’t any irritation or scarring left.”

“That won’t be necessary. I can freely use my Nen with you,” said Leorio. He was putting on a new pair of gloves as he spoke, a little behind in preparing for the exam since he hadn’t expected Kurapika to come back. “It’s useful, you know, in certain parts of the world, to perform examinations—especially physicals which are normally more thorough—without requiring patients to undress. Different cultures have their own definitions of dignity and limits to what they are personally com—”

“I don’t really care,” interrupted Kurapika. Leorio stammered to a stop and gaped again. Kurapika was insufferable, but Leorio wouldn’t be much of a doctor if he couldn’t handle an ornery patient on his examination table. Pursing his lips, he got to business and coolly directed Kurapika to sit up straighter before he began Nen-infused palpation. 

It was impossible to miss the physical side-effects of the stress that plagued Kurapika daily. He wasn’t sleeping properly. Nor was he eating properly. Nothing was hidden under Leorio’s investigative touch. Kurapika knew it wouldn’t be, and his anxious anticipation over what Leorio would discover subtly interfered with Leorio’s ability to gain a quick and accurate reading of his breathing and heart rate. This was always the trouble with treating someone who hid everything the hardest from those whose opinion he cared about the most. The vulnerability of being found out, the anticipated judgment, overrode Kurapika’s knowledge that Leorio, while he might complain, would never actually force Kurapika to change or do anything he didn’t want to do. Leorio blustered and grumbled, but when it came to Kurapika, he had a tendency to roll over and let Kurapika have his way, no matter how much he didn’t like it. He wanted Kurapika to make better choices, but he didn’t want to drive a wedge between them by being overbearing. He was too attached to him as a friend to lord over him with the same authority and resolve he could call forth when he treated other similarly difficult patients.

Taking the initiative to de-escalate, Leorio relaxed and turned on his most professional bedside manner. While cycling through his repertoire of exams in impersonal silence, a steady sense of calm spread between them, both figuratively and literally. With Kurapika too wound up to notice, Leorio had started emitting soothing Nen, a technique inspired by Senritsu’s flute, which he found useful when working with children or those who’d never visited a formal doctor and undergone an exam before. The physiological effects of Kurapika’s anxiety lessened by a little, steadily enough to tell Leorio that Kurapika didn’t know Nen was influencing his state of mind.

“So, what’s your job here at the station?” asked Leorio, trying to keep the conversation light, but pertinent. “The initial report from Morro mentioned his plan to use you for repairs and collecting resources from the basin, but I’m assuming you were reassigned after your exposure.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

The rhythmic tapping of the Nen palpation went off time in Leorio’s surprise. “Dr. Costu cleared you? To go outside?”

“Yes.”

Leorio struggled to wrap his head around why a doctor skilled enough to have kept Kurapika from dying ten different ways at once at the drop of a hat, and who’d invested days of tireless, round-the-clock care into improving Kurapika’s condition, would then shrug and allow the risk of Kurapika returning to work so soon. Had he put that much faith into Kurapika’s healing ability? Or had Kurapika exaggerated the healing chain’s effectiveness because he was prideful enough to die rather than have someone take care of him a day longer?

Leorio told Kurapika to inhale and exhale deeply several times to see how he was breathing. The image of Kurapika the evening before, thinner, pale, his hair grown out and knotted, passed before his mind’s eye. He directed Kurapika to inhale and exhale one more time.

“Have you experienced any trouble breathing, any shortness of breath?”

Kurapika shrugged as he thought about it. “I, um, not really.”

“Have you experienced any fevers, chills, or coughing, in addition to your obvious fatigue?”

Again, Kurapika shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. Leorio wanted a better answer, but Kurapika didn’t have one. “Look, I’m tired, Leorio. I’m worn out. Around here, in a place like this, I always feel sick. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“But are you ever actually sick?” insisted Leorio. “Coughing? Fever? Chills? Anything like that? Perhaps after coming in from your work outside?”

Kurapika thought back. “I guess?” he said doubtfully. Leorio pursed his lips. “Sure? I was sick for a while even after I started healing myself. I can’t fight it all. Being stressed makes it worse. It was similar when I was working in the mafia, though. I always felt sick then. I don’t feel like now is really that different. It’s stress. It makes you sick, stress.”

“So does acute hypersensitivity pneumonitis,” said Leorio. The name of the condition didn’t register with Kurapika, which meant he didn’t show the immediate, proper level of concern Leorio would’ve felt better seeing. Frustrated, Leorio tried to explain, but his composure was slipping due to his horror at Kurapika’s apparent ignorance concerning his health and his disturbing willingness to sweep everything wrong with him under the rug of “stress”. 

“Stuff like natural allergens, that small percentage missed in decontamination—even the decontamination chemicals themselves and the dust everywhere in this station, can serve as causative agents. If you’ve damaged your lungs severely, if the inflammation becomes chronic….” Leorio stopped and took a deep breath. “What I mean is, if you don’t know what’s happening, you won’t treat it. The scarring is permanent.”

Kurapika couldn’t claim to fully understand, but he got the gist of what Leorio was trying to say. He reflected on his answer before speaking. “Okay. Well, I’ve been sick,” he said, “but I haven’t had fever or chills that I remember. Dr. Costu was particular about the risk for infection and fevers. I’m just…tired, really. All I am is tired.”

“I understand,” said Leorio, sighing. “I’m sorry.”

Kurapika tried to lighten up, to look like he wasn’t so bad. “I feel a little better now,” he said. “Better than before. Not so tightly wound, I guess.”

“That,” said Leorio, feeling a mild pang of guilt even as he forced a smile, “is because I’m here.” 

“Maybe,” agreed Kurapika. For a brief moment, the hint of a smile curled at the corner of his mouth. Leorio felt another pang, this time out of regret for having not arrived sooner. He blamed Mizaistom to feel better, though the irrational side of him that wanted to take responsibility for everything insisted he should’ve joined Kurapika on the mission from the start instead of only helping him study.

“After your traumatic exposure and the significant damage sustained by your lungs and heart, I’d have refrained from sending you outside again so soon…or ever,” said Leorio. He spoke with a little too much force, as if sharing how he’d have done things differently would miraculously cancel out the mistakes already made. “How could Dr. Costu not have known the risk? He should’ve prevented you from going outside until he was certain you could handle it. All I can imagine is that he overestimated your ability to heal yourself, especially if he didn’t know about Nen.”

“I don’t think he overestimated my ability,” said Kurapika. Leorio stopped the Nen palpation and took a step back. Kurapika didn’t look Leorio in the eye, but watched the wrinkled space between Leorio’s eyebrows as the creases deepened. “He helped me decide what I needed to treat. What the priorities were. He would’ve inferred what the limits of my ability were from that. So, no. He probably knew the risk and decided to take it.”

“What?”

“My primary job is to go outside. Dr. Morro and Dr. Costu couldn’t leave the station. They were too afraid. They needed someone who could do that for them. I think Dr. Costu didn’t….”

Leorio held up a hand to stop Kurapika from continuing. He’d shut his eyes and was taking a slow, deep breath, struggling to quell his rising anger

“Excuse me,” said Leorio, lowering his head and keeping his eyes shut, thought his eyebrows were nearly to his hairline. He spoke rapidly. “In order to compensate for the professional bedside manner I’m about to totally lose, please accept my preemptive apology and the reassurance that I’m not mad at you. What I would like to do, but can’t, is resurrect Claupacio Costu so I can kill him again myself.” He opened his eyes and nodded to Kurapika. “Give me a moment.”

Leorio pointed himself towards the door and marched out. He crossed the infirmary in swift, sweeping strides and disappeared into the furthest room down the hall. A second later, there was a crash and a string of profanity in Leorio’s own language followed by an eerily still silence. Leorio emerged a minute later, disheveled but once more in control. Pairo, who’d nearly dropped the book he was reading when he’d heard the crash, stared at him as he passed on his way back to the examination room.

“Kurapika,” said Leorio, solemn as he stood before Kurapika again. He clamped both his hands on Kurapika’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, personally sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left everything up to Mizaistom. I had a bad feeling about it from the start, and I should’ve acted on that right away and come out here with you, my research be damned. Maybe, if I’d been here, maybe….” 

Leorio glanced over to the door, beyond which Pairo sat with the book he was no longer reading, waiting in timid silence for whatever might happen next.

“…maybe it’d have been better,” Leorio concluded. “Somehow. I don’t know.”

He hung his head and let go of one of Kurapika’s shoulders to adjust the glasses slipping down his nose. After a heavy, resigned sigh, he pulled away, but was stopped by Kurapika grabbing his arm.

“It’s not your fault,” Kurapika reminded him. His voice was critical, but his expression held a noticeable degree of warmth. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to come along if you’d invited yourself. To be honest, I don’t think you should’ve have come here even now. If I’d known you were going to replace Dr. Costu, I’d have told Mizaistom to send someone else.”

Considering the bad mood he was already in, the last thing Leorio wanted to hear from Kurapika was this. Leorio hadn’t come all this way of his own volition for Kurapika to tell him he was wrong, that he ought to have better things to do than drop everything to save a friend.

 “There’s no way I wasn’t coming out here, not after what Mizaistom told me about what was going on,” said Leorio. “Even if you’d known I was coming, and you told me to stay away, that was never going to happen. If Mizaistom had assigned someone else per your request, I still would’ve come here on my own. Who could stop me? Please. I have a Hunter’s License and a small fortune at my disposal. If I chose to die a grisly death stranded in the heart of the Solaris Basin with you, no power on Earth can stop me."

“But I don’t want you here. I never wanted you here.”

“That’s too bad,” said Leorio. “I’m here now. You’re stuck with me.”

“No, that’s not it,” said Kurapika. “It’s that, you, Leorio, you’re too….” Kurapika faltered, cutting himself off with a short sound of frustration. It was easier to get mad than explain it. “Forget it,” he said, shoving aside the hand still lingering on his shoulder. “That’s true. You’re here now, and I can’t change it, but I hope you come to your senses and leave soon, before…before you can’t.”

As his hand was knocked away, Leorio bit back a resurgence of the temper he’d already failed to suppress a few moments ago. He pointed to the door. “Exam’s over. You’re good, Kurapika. We’re done. You may leave.”

“I just mean it’s dangerous to—”

“Dangerous to what?” asked Leorio. “I can handle it, whatever it is. Don’t even worry.”

“No, you should—”

“I can handle it, Kurapika,” snapped Leorio. The finger pointing to the door straightened and trembled as he clenched the rest of his fist. “I can handle it because the prospect of abandoning you here to save myself is infinitely worse than literally anything else that could possibly happen. Is that clear to you? Do you understand? I’m not leaving, and I can’t leave. Not unless you leave with me. There’s no other way. You won’t persuade me otherwise, so, you should just shut up about it if that’s all you want to tell me.”

Kurapika swallowed heavily, but didn’t say another word. He slid off the examination table, and, ducking past Leorio, careful not to get too close, he left the room. Outside, he said something to Pairo, who placed his book on the chair beside him before hurrying to follow Kurapika out. If the main door hadn’t been automatic, Leorio was positive Kurapika would’ve slammed it behind him. Instead, he marched through and didn’t look back. 

When he was sure Kurapika was gone, Leorio slammed his hands down on the examination table. He remained hunched forward with his fingers splayed out to support him, thinking. After a few minutes, he sighed and pushed his glasses back up, challenging himself to come up with a more useful way to occupy his time than bullying furniture and staring into space.


	15. Asking

Leorio let off steam by reassembling, to the best of his limited knowledge, the chair he’d crumpled against the wall in the room down the hall. His frustration was quieter now, after its initial, destructive surge. Though it was increasingly rare for Leorio’s anger to morph into aggression, and even rarer for him to indulge it, this evening had been a special case. A limited range of triggers compelled him to violence against inanimate objects, the majority of these triggers beginning and ending with the people he cared about most, the ones he told himself he couldn’t stand to lose without losing something of himself along with them.

He should’ve been notified of what was going on earlier than this. The moment Kurapika had reported that he’d nearly died, Leorio should’ve been called, except Mizaistom hadn’t considered it a risk worth taking. Kurapika had survived. Hunters were inhumanly capable. Kurapika could take care of himself.

“Idiot,” spat Leorio. He let the chair go, lest he was tempted to pick up where he left off demolishing it. He got up and paced the room, feeling the familiar, destructive energy coursing through him again, urging him to retaliate. The fact that he’d reached this state a third time embarrassed him. He’d been at the research station for one day, and he’d already lost his cool three times. In the end, he hadn’t stood a chance.

“Actually, shit, I should call that idiot, shouldn’t I?” he muttered to himself. “Someone has to. Dammit.” 

He pictured Mizaistom’s slab of a face frowning back at him from a computer monitor. This face had evolved from inspiring feelings of friendly familiarity as a respected coworker in the Zodiacs, to inspiring a peculiar revulsion Leorio found hard to explain. He’d reflected on it in the quiet moments of his journey and acknowledged that he associated Mizaistom’s face with nothing but bad news, since it served as a frequent spokesman for every danger Kurapika was facing. Through it, Leorio received the worst news imaginable with a professional austerity capable of absorbing Leorio’s most visceral reaction with hardly a shift in its brow. Leorio despised that level of professional restraint just as much as he was currently envying it.

A clipboard clattered to the floor in the reception area. Leorio jolted to attention and went to investigate, dimly aware he might encounter something or someone he wasn’t entirely prepared to deal with. He might be rushing to meet his own personal enemy from within himself, waiting to turn him into a distracted, paranoid mess like Morro or Kurapika. He didn’t know if he was ready for that yet, but decided just as quickly that he had no choice in the matter.

“Excuse me?” he asked as he turned the corner into the reception area. At first, he didn’t see anyone. Then, popping up from where he’d crouched down to retrieve the clipboard was Pairo. Leorio let out a sigh of relief.

“Oh, hello,” said Leorio, relaxing. “I guess Kurapika sent you after me again? That’s funny. Ironically, the first thing that guy does after another actual person shows up is isolate himself. Oh well. I guess I’m not surprised. I’ll get him later.”

Pairo shook his head. At first, Leorio didn’t notice, since he was bending down to collect a pen that’d rolled off the clipboard. Pairo cleared his throat.

“What are you shaking your head at?” asked Leorio. “Kurapika? Didn’t Kurapika send you?”

“No. Kurapika didn’t send me.”

Leorio was reaching for the pen and missed it in his surprise. With a frown, he leaned forward and snatched it up. He held it out for Pairo to take and place on the desk with the clipboard, eyeing him suspiciously all the while.

“You can speak this language?” asked Leorio. “You knew it the whole time?”

“I don’t speak it,” said Pairo. He looked away self-consciously at Leorio’s high, incredulous brow. “I read it, but Kurapika speaks it, so, when we go, he speaks it.”

“I see,” said Leorio. “You mean you let Kurapika do most of the talking.”

“Yes.”

Leorio nodded knowingly and sighed. “Ah, well, you’ll only get better if you practice, you know.”

“I know.”

“Why does Kurapika always translate what I’m saying for you, if you already understand what I’m saying?”

“It’s the quickest. Also…he’s that way.”

“What way?”

“Quick. Very correct.”

“You mean the second you make one mistake he acts like you don’t know anything and does it all himself.”

“Yes.”

There was a mildly exasperated look on Pairo’s face as he admitted this, and Leorio understood it perfectly. He stood and motioned for Pairo to follow him into the doctor’s office. “C’mon. I have to make a call. There isn’t much to do out here in the meantime. Do you want a book or something to look at?”

Pairo grimaced. “I don’t want a book,” he said. “The books are boring here, in here.”

Leorio agreed as he switched on the computer and sat down to wait for it to boot up. He checked on the connection he’d gone through the headache of setting up that morning. Pairo sat on a stool along the counter behind him and watched the screen over Leorio’s shoulder.

“Who’ll you call?”

“A man who knows me and Kurapika. He wants to know how Kurapika is. He’s worried about him.”

“Kurapika knows a lot of people?”

“Yeah, I guess he does.”

“They’ll help?” asked Pairo. His sudden seriousness surprised Leorio.

“Help?”

“Kurapika isn’t well, you know”

Leorio nodded. “We know it. That’s why I’m here,” he said. He pulled the keyboard towards him to enter his login information when prompted. “The man I’m calling, Mizaistom, he’s already helping Kurapika with some other problems. You see, Kurapika has a lot of problems right now...”

Leorio hesitated as he realized didn’t know how much Pairo had been told about Kurapika’s situation. It didn’t feel like it was his place to share. He looked over his shoulder at Pairo, and saw Pairo’s seriousness had only increased. He felt like he should add something more positive, but nothing came to mind.

“You mean you’ll help him?” asked Pairo. It was somewhere between a plea and a demand. He wasn’t curious. He was making sure.

“I’m trying to,” said Leorio. “I have to call Mizaistom first, let him know that Kurapika’s, well…for one thing, he’s alive, which is good.”

“And there’s a dead person inside the freezer.”

“I know, I know. Kurapika told me. I’ll tell Mizaistom about that, too.”

Pairo frowned, searching for words. Leorio gave him a minute and turned back to the computer.

“I’m not Pairo, you know.” 

Leorio stopped before opening the application to video call Mizaistom. The fact that Pairo knew he wasn’t the real Pairo left Leorio oddly unsettled. He couldn’t tell based on the boy’s inflection alone if Pairo were just stating something he’d been told or had overheard, or if he were about to illuminate Leorio on what precisely he was before attacking him. Ridiculous as it sounded, maybe Pairo was a threat.

“What— _who_ …are you?” asked Leorio cautiously. “What do you mean?”

“I think I’m Pairo.”

“But?”

“I’m not dead. Kurapika told you. Pairo’s dead.”

“Did you know Pairo was dead?”

“Yes. Kurapika told me Pairo was dead.”

“But you didn’t know before he told you?”

Pairo shook his head. Leorio took a moment to process this information, trying not to imagine the conversation in which Kurapika had told Pairo all about the “real” version of him who was no more.

“I didn’t know Pairo,” admitted Leorio a moment later, quickly deciding he wasn’t going to be the one to tell Pairo how the original Pairo had died if Kurapika hadn’t already. He wasn’t sure he knew well enough. He’d never asked Kurapika how much Kurapika himself knew that hadn’t been published in the papers. “I met Kurapika...later on.” He paused. “So. Are you his brother? Or his cousin?”

“I’m his best friend.”

Leorio hadn’t realized until that exact moment that it was possible to feel even worse about Kurapika’s situation than he already did.

“Do you know what happened to you?” asked Leorio, taking the risk. “The original Pairo?”

“No.”

Leorio fought back a sigh of relief. Kurapika had at least kept that much to himself. Maybe there was some hope.

“What do you remember yourself? What did you know when you arrived that hasn’t been told to you?”

“I remember Kurapika.”

“What else?”

“Everything with Kurapika. Our houses. Our families.”

“Do you know where you are right now?”

“The Solaris Basin Research Station.”

“Did you know that at first, or did he tell you?”

“He told me that.”

“Do you know the reason why you’re here?”

“No. There’s a reason?”

Leorio shrugged and made a doubtful sound. Whatever the reason might be, he’d have been among the last to know. The computer had fallen asleep as he’d been questioning Pairo, and he hit a few keys at random to wake it up. 

“Do you know the reason why Kurapika’s sad?” asked Pairo. Leorio didn’t know how to put it lightly. He took a second to consider his response, but the question turned out to be rhetorical. “It’s me.”

“No, hey. There’s a lot more to it,” said Leorio. “Don’t feel bad. You’re a factor, not the cause. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault he’s…sad.”

“No. He told me that.”

Leorio groaned, resting his face in his hands. He cast a side-glance at Pairo and then looked away. “He shouldn’t have said something like that to you,” he said under his breath. “You don’t say things like that to people.”

Pairo assumed Leorio had misunderstood him. “No, listen,” he insisted. “I can’t die.” 

Leorio shook his head and let go of his face. “You’ve been stuck hanging out with Kurapika too long. Don’t listen to him.”

“It’s true. I can’t die. I helped Kurapika to make tests. I’m not real, so, when it’s cold, I don’t care. The other person doesn’t care, too. We tested it.”

Leorio placed his elbows on the armrests of his chair and slouched down deeper into it. He looked at Pairo, unable to argue, but equally unable to believe what he was hearing. There was no point trying to sugarcoat it; the boy knew for a fact, tested and verified, that he wasn’t normal. 

“And are you _okay_ with knowing that?” asked Leorio.

“I don’t know.”

“Are you at least nervous? Concerned about it? Worried?”

“I don’t know. I’m worried about Kurapika.”

Leorio rested his chin on top of his folded hands. He nodded at Pairo and swiveled the chair slowly back to face the computer. With one hand, the other holding his head, he opened the video call application. It was a bad time, he ‘d just realized, but he dialed anyway, keeping the camera off. Mizaistom wasn’t going to be around. No-one answered. Leorio left a message.

“This is Leorio. I’ve arrived. Dr. Costu is dead, supposedly a suicide. Everyone else is relatively well. It’s not ideal, but not the worse case scenario. I’ll update you tomorrow at a better time. Goodbye.”

Leorio ended the call and looked back over to Pairo, who’d scooted out of sight of the camera without being told. Pairo was frowning at him.

“I can’t mention Kurapika directly in a message,” explained Leorio. “This isn’t Q. This computer doesn’t have that. Kurapika’s computer has it, but I don’t know which computer he uses, and anyway, it’s not a good time. I’d prefer to talk to Mizaistom directly, okay? Face to face.”

Pairo didn’t seem convinced by Leorio’s excuses. He crossed his arms and continued to frown in disapproval.

“You reveal to me that you speak the Hunter language just in time to give me the silent treatment, then, is that it?” asked Leorio. Pairo didn’t move. “I can’t imagine why you came down here if it was just to get mad at me and throw a tantrum. I’m not Kurapika; I’m not going to fight with you. If you want to pick a fight with anyone, you can go back upstairs and try him.”

“You can come, too,” said Pairo. He pointed at Leorio accusingly. “Kurapika told me he has a friend Leorio. One’s Gon, one’s Killua, one’s Leorio.” He ticked the three names off with a small nod and chopping motion as he uncurled each finger. “I don’t know Mizaizton, but you’re Leorio, correct?”

“I am.”

“Okay, Leorio.” Pairo stopped pointing and lowered his hands. “You’re a nice person. So, help? You’re real, so, he feels better. You are his friend.”

“He’s a little angry with me right now.”

“Yes. He’s angry, but he’s that way.”

Leorio laughed a little despite himself, which earned him a sharp look from Pairo. Pairo didn’t consider any part of this topic a laughing matter. 

“Okay, okay,” said Leorio. “First thing, though: Instead of saying ‘he’s that way’, say ‘he’s always like that’.”

“He’s always like that,” recited Pairo unhappily. “Angry.”

“Yes, very true. And what am I supposed to do about it? I don’t know about the Kurapika you remember, but he’s pretty much always been like that the entire time I’ve known him.”

“You mean it’s normal,” said Pairo. For a second, he seemed oddly reassured, but his face darkened soon after. “I remember Kurapika...like something different.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s probably a lot different, now.”

Pairo looked on the verge of tears, alarming Leorio with how abruptly his mood had changed. Leorio pushed his chair back immediately and placed and hand on Pairo’s shoulder. “Hey. Sorry. It’s alright,” he said. In retrospect, this was partly his own fault for even mentioning the kind of person Pairo remembered as opposed to the Kurapika Leorio had always known. “It’s just been a while, you know. A lot has happened. His best friend died.”

“It’s sad.”

“That’s true, but he’s also made more friends since then,” said Leorio, squeezing Pairo’s shoulder lightly. “You know our names, even. There’s Gon, Killua, and Leorio for starters. He’s got more than just us, of course. Kids like him. People trust him. He’s really smart and strong, and he’s never let anyone down. He likes to think he’s a lone wolf who does his own thing most of the time, but in reality, he’s always got people around him. Why wouldn’t he? He’s a smart leader who cares about his team. People trust him with their lives.” 

Pairo didn’t speak, but listened attentively. Leorio cracked a wider grin when he noticed and nodded, assuring Pairo that everything he was saying was the truth. Even Senritsu wouldn’t have been able to detect a lie in Leorio’s praise for Kurapika. As far as Leorio cared, these weren’t compliments; they were facts.

“Of course, he thinks he’s bad at working in teams, but that’s mostly because his expectations for himself are impossibly high, and all he sees is how he comes up short of those expectations. Mizai--you know, the guy I was calling? Well, Mizaistom’s always telling Kurapika that he’s a lot better than he thinks he is. At least Mizai’s good for that. I’d been telling Kurapika the same if he’d actually talk to me about it, too, but I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, but he’s always trying to play tough around me, to convince me everything’s under control. He never tells me if he’s unsure or insecure. I mean, he’ll admit to me when he’s wrong or being stupid, so, I don’t think it’s that he’s too proud and worried about me judging him. But he’s not...I guess he’s not wanting to look weak? And, heh, I guess he doesn’t consider stupidity a weakness.”

“He can learn,” said Pairo, unable to match Leorio in verbosity, but still contributing as much as he could when Leorio finally paused.

“Good point,” said Leorio, impressed but at the same time supposing he should’ve expected a fair amount of intelligence and perceptiveness from Kurapika’s childhood best friend. “I guess that’s the smartest way to handle being wrong. You learn from it.”

Pairo nodded and hopped down from the stool where he’d been sitting. Leorio let go of his shoulder, but Pairo grabbed Leorio’s hand before he could pull it back and tugged, trying to pull Leorio along with him to the door.

“So, now, you and I can go?” asked Pairo, though his persistent pulling on Leorio’s hand implied he’d already decided for them. “You can help me,” he reminded Leorio when Leorio didn’t budge.

Leorio glanced around the narrow office, taking in the emptiness of the bare counters his predecessor had swept clear. He shuffled through a mental inventory of all the work that needed to be done in this room, the equipment and supplies that needed to be replaced, all the cleaning and the repairs. He looked back at Pairo, who’d finally let go and held out his hand to Leorio, smiling welcomingly now, inviting him along. He’d run out of words to persuade him, and hoped to win him over with cheerful energy instead.

“Fine,” said Leorio. He held down a button to turn off the computer and stood. Of course there was work left to do in the infirmary, but there was work to do upstairs, too. He didn’t look forward to either, but the prospect of sitting around alone, waiting for whatever was coming next was his only other option, and that was the least desirable option of all. Without taking Pairo’s hand, he nodded, and they went to find Kurapika.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Didn’t you read the Association field book on the Solaris Basin Research Station before you set out? Because after all the warnings about plants and toxins and largely unhelpful locals in the surrounding regions, there’s an entire section about how tempting it is to isolate yourself out here, and how that’s a terrible idea, and you shouldn’t do it.”

Kurapika didn’t reply. The soft slide and tap of his fingers over the keyboard continued, uninterrupted. He’d paused once briefly to look up when Leorio and Pairo had entered, but not at them. Instead, he’d looked at the open book propped beside his monitor, disguising any interest with unbreakable focus on his current task.

A wave of relief washed over Pairo when he caught sight of Kurapika. When he and Leorio had reached the bedroom and Kurapika hadn’t been there, Pairo had been distraught. For several minutes, all he could do was ask, with needling insistence crumbling to desperation, where Kurapika was. Nothing else had mattered. Something of the Pairo before, the one that had come to find Leorio in the infirmary and ask him for help, vanished for those few moments. In its place had been something more like Dr. Costu’s brother, wandering the halls and asking for “Satta” until he was sent back to the freezer.

Leorio had attempted to calm Pairo down by placing a hand on his shoulder, but Pairo had knocked him away with enough force to hurt. Leorio hadn’t expected him to be so strong and let go immediately. He’d told Pairo he could find Kurapika fast, which had got Pairo’s attention and brought him back to more of his previous self. Using En, Leorio located Kurapika in a downstairs office, busily cleaning and organizing scans from a book.

“We’ve been looking for you,” said Leorio crossly once he was near the desk. “You nearly gave Pairo a heart attack.”

Kurapika shrugged. Pairo had taken the only other chair in the room, so, Leorio leaned against the nearest wall.

“It doesn’t matter. He finds me eventually,” said Kurapika distractedly. “We’ve played that game for hours before. He catches up.”

“He seemed pretty worried about you.”

“He does that, but then, he’s fine.”

Leorio didn’t like how Kurapika wouldn’t look away from the book or the screen. He hadn’t come here for Kurapika to ignore him. He was here to help, whatever that was supposed to entail.

“I ought to apologize for snapping at you earlier,” said Leorio. “I completely understand why you don’t want me here, in this place. I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy sent out here, so, to have my friend show up, for my own sake…I’d hate that. I’d be pissed. So, hey, I get it. I’m sorry it’s like this. But, that’s how it is.”

A flutter of keystrokes padded by as Kurapika added a note of clarification to a blurred section of scanned text.

“But, punishing me for this, making it my problem, doesn’t help anyone,” continued Leorio. “Don’t be a jerk, Kurapika. What did you expect to happen, never calling Mizaistom, and then we get a message telling us someone’s died out here?”

Leorio was talking to a wall. Not even Pairo seemed to be listening. The office was small, almost crowded with all three of them there, and yet Leorio might as well have been alone for all Kurapika seemed to care.

“I’d have come out here anyway, eventually, I mean it,” said Leorio. “Even if no-one had died, even if you’d been more reliable with communication. I was never going to be able to sit patiently and get my work done, safe and sound in the city, knowing the whole time you were out here. I jumped up and came running at the first excuse. So, even if you ignore me like you are now for the whole rest of the time I’m here, it doesn’t really matter, because I was always going to turn up one way or the other. If you don’t like it, that’s too bad. I’m here whether you like it or not, and I don’t care to be anywhere else.”

Leorio crossed his arms and leaned back into the wall. As someone who could run for five hours straight with no end in sight, he was more than prepared to slouch against a wall for three times that or longer if he had to.

After a few minutes, Kurapika said something to Pairo, who shot up from his seat and hurried out of the room. A moment later, sounds of rolling and rattling came from the hall, and Pairo reappeared guiding a light, wheeled stool through the doorway. He pushed it towards Leorio and invited him to take a seat.

“You’re here, so you might as well make yourself comfortable,” said Kurapika. He caught Leorio’s eye for half a second and quickly turned back to his work. Leorio sat down and waited, arms still crossed, while Pairo went to a shelf along the wall and took down a book. Instead of returning to his chair with it, he brought it to Leorio and held it out to him.

“For you,” he said.


	16. Goodnight

Leorio spread a sheet out on the cot he’d set up for Pairo between the two beds in the double patient room they were all moving into. Kurapika, Leorio insisted, couldn’t stay by himself anymore. Either Leorio was going to sleep on the floor in Kurapika’s own quarters, or Kurapika was going to move somewhere Leorio could keep a close eye on him. Kurapika agreed without incident and brought his spare clothes and toiletries down to the infirmary. He reminded Leorio, who was surprised by how quickly he’d come back, that he was accustomed to moving around. 

“Technically, isolating yourself from your fellow researchers is against the rules of this station, so, we’d have had to share a room anyway,” said Leorio as he shook out a musty set of new sheets for Pairo’s bed. Though they were clean, like most things in the overlarge station, the spare bedding hadn’t been used in ages. “I want to make it clear I’m not punishing you. Yes, the rules say your right to individual quarters has to be revoked given the circumstances, but the reality is that it’s dangerous to let you continue on your own as you’ve been up to now. So, although it might feel like a punishment, this is actually for your own good.”

“I’m not against it,” said Kurapika as he tossed a pillow to the head of his bed. “Sharing a room with you isn’t a punishment for me. I’m just curious why you haven’t been so diligent with Dr. Morro. Aren’t you planning to revoke his right to individual quarters, too?”

Leorio winced guiltily. “Let’s just say Morro is an example of exactly why you shouldn’t be left alone around here,” he said. A second later, he confessed. “And to be honest, Morro’s also a bit beyond my ability to provide adequate care. I’m not a psychiatrist. It’s not exactly my training.”

“So, you’re just leaving him alone?”

“No,” said Leorio. “I tried to reach out again this afternoon while you were helping fix up the infirmary, but it was the same ever. He’s changed the codes on the doors. Even though I’ve been granted the same station-wide security clearance as any senior team leader, I still can’t get the control room open.”

“ _Senior_ team leader?” asked Kurapika, shooting Leorio a mystified look. “Wait, are you…are you technically supposed to be my boss?”

“No. I’m the lead medical officer. I outrank you, but I’m not directly in charge of you, because you’re not on the medical team.” Leorio bent over to finish stretching the sheet over Pairo’s cot. Pairo watched and waited at his elbow impatiently, hugging a pillow. “That said,” continued Leorio, “you already seem to have way more access than you should for an non-specialized worker in a rudimentary support position. Congratulations on the many speedy promotions you must’ve been granted since you arrived.”

“I promoted myself,” said Kurapika with a sigh. “After Dr. Costu died, I ordered Dr. Morro to give me free-reign of the station.”

“Ah. Then, no wonder he changed the access codes on the control room door. He probably didn’t want you barging in.”

Pairo was free at last to place his pillow at the head of the cot, and did so with care, centering it perfectly. Leorio went to change the sheets on his own bed. Kurapika came over to set a fresh pillow onto a chair next to Leorio’s bed while Leorio unfolded another sheet and shook it out sharply.

“What’s your plan for him? For Dr. Morro?” asked Kurapika. “You’re not one to abandon a patient, even if they’re stubborn. You’re more stubborn than any of them.”

From what Leorio could recall, this was one of the few instances Kurapika had ever spoken of his stubbornness in a somewhat positive light. He smiled, but Kurapika shrugged as though it were nothing.

“If he won’t listen to reason before my investigation is over, then, before I leave, I’ll knock the door down, drag him out, and take him with me. He’ll have to be committed somewhere. He should’ve been removed years ago, but that got put aside while negotiations deciding the basin’s ownership were underway.”

“And for me?” asked Kurapika. He stepped forward and took the opposite end of the sheet Leorio was spreading out, helping him stretch it over the mattress. “Where will I go? Or do I stay here?”

“Of course you won’t stay here,” said Leorio. “If Morro’s too far gone, I’m supposed to shut down the station. Everyone leaves. The Hunter Association will come in and carry out their demolition plans.”

Kurapika focused on smoothing out bunches in the fabric directly in front of him. “So, again, where am I supposed to go?” he asked. “How much farther away from the world can I get than out here? Are we going to airdrop me onto some unsettled island out in the Mobius Ocean?”

“Mizaistom is hoping to uncover the mole in the organization before I’m done here. Then, we can relax the absolute secrecy.”

“And if he doesn’t uncover the mole by then?”

“He’d better.”

“But if not?”

“We’ll deal with it.”

Kurapika despised feeling as if his life were being taken out of his own hands. He gritted his teeth and glared down at the corner of the sheet he’d been smoothing out. He tugged a little harder at the wrinkles to pull them flat, but the sheet had been sloppily stored for so long that the wrinkles were set in and immediately bunched back up when he let go.

“I should handle this myself,” he said, clenching the hand on the bed into a fist, “instead of depending on you and Mizaistom to deal with everything for me over and over while I keep my head down.”

“I didn’t mean me and Mizaistom will deal with it for you,” said Leorio. He leaned forward, halfway across the bed between them. “I meant you and me, _we’ll_ deal with it. Us. I’m here now, and I’m not going to let you go through all this alone. I’ve got your back. I’m going to help you.”

“But when your investigation’s over, you’ll have to go back to—”

“No. Even after the investigation.” 

“Don’t be an idiot. It could take months, or….”

“It’s the same even if it takes years.”

The flush of anger on Kurapika’s face shifted to embarrassment. He stepped back to pick up the pillow from the chair. “I see,” he mumbled. He flopped the pillow down onto the bed so that it fell towards Leorio without Kurapika having the hand it over. “Sorry.”

He went back to his side of the room to check on Pairo.

“We’re lucky there’s plenty of space around here for the three of us,” said Leorio louder, speaking to Kurapika and Pairo both. “Plenty of double occupancy inpatient rooms around, for sure. It’s a dangerous basin.”

Pairo stared blankly. Kurapika stifled a yawn.

“You two get to bed. I’ll hit the light. Go on,” said Leorio. He stood at the door by the light switch, motioning for Pairo and Kurapika to go ahead. Kurapika obliged without a word, pulling back his blankets and slipping between them. Pairo followed his lead. Once they were settled, Leorio turned off the light. He wished them both a goodnight and was amazed when he heard Kurapika answer. He kept this amazement to himself, however. He didn’t want to make it weird.

As much as he could, Leorio fought the urge to disrupt the silence with tossing and turning. Holding still only made him more restless, however, and after a half hour, he forwent sleep entirely for the time being and got up. Since his bed was nearest to the door, it was easy to slip out of the room without drawing much attention. He wasn’t planning to go far, or even anywhere in particular. He just needed to walk around a little until he was tired enough to fall asleep. The night before he’d been exhausted enough to sleep anywhere, even with the intrusive feeling of the lake’s eye bearing down on him. Tonight, things were different. Much of the numbing shock of before had worn off and been replaced by a ceaseless buzz of mental activity. While such a state of mind was useful for solving problems in the moment, it wasn’t something Leorio could easily turn off when he went to bed.

Leorio had quit smoking some time ago, regrettably more for work than health, so, poisoning himself towards a calmer state of mind and body wasn’t an option. Though there were plenty of rooms in the infirmary, there wasn’t anywhere to go, and too much pacing outside the door might wake up Kurapika or Pairo. Leorio opted for the main hall instead. Maybe he’d run into a few housekeeping robots to wave at. Beyond that, the station didn’t have much by way of individual entertainment. Everyone was supposed to go around in groups, to interact. Most rooms couldn’t be entered alone, since being able to shut oneself up someplace invited the same “Tedeu Morro Scenario” currently underway in the control room.

Officially, Leorio was going against protocol roaming around at night. He didn’t even have a visitor of his own following him, so, if that might’ve counted as traveling in pairs, he didn’t qualify. There weren’t any robots cleaning the hall, either. It was as if he were the only one there. This feeling grew stronger the further he went. He expected the lights to go out at any moment, leaving him stranded, deserted in an empty station, everyone else having been an illusion and long gone. Then, he’d see where he really was: an empty tunnel lined with broken tiles, the basin’s most opportunistic mosses and vines creeping in through cracked and shattered windows, and water dripping from indeterminate sources above and around, encroaching slowly but steadily on vacant rooms and abandoned scientific equipment.

On second thought, Leorio decided it’d be better to pace the doctor’s office rather than roam about the hall outside. He turned to head back, but froze as he caught the muted sound of someone banging on a wall deep inside the station. He was near one of the double doors that lead to the central control room and suspected the sound was coming from there. Not wasting a second, he entered the code for the doors and hurried through. The sound keep on, dull and deep, louder now that there weren’t so many rooms between him and the source. It thudded a few more times, getting faster, until it broke with a new sound like that of metal rending and a hard weight hitting the floor. After this, the noise stopped. When Leorio reached the nearest control room door, everything was quiet. He banged on the door with the side of his fist and shouted for Dr. Morro. Remembering the intercom, he grabbed the receiver and called out again.

“Morro! What the hell was that?”

“Oh,” the exhausted voice of Dr. Morro panted a moment later. “I woke you. Sorry, doctor.”

“It’s the middle of the night. What the hell are you doing in there?”

“I encountered some technical difficulties.”

“Technical difficulties with what? With a wall? You doing some remodeling in there or something?”

“A door, Dr. Paladiknight. A stuck door.”

“What was all that banging about?”

“I was unsticking the door. By force.”

Leorio scoffed loud enough that Dr. Morro couldn’t miss it under the hum of the active line. “You thought that one in the morning was the best possible time to address that kind of issue? It couldn’t wait until working hours? When you could’ve simply called the station technician to come handle it for you?” 

“The who?”

“Kurapika. You hired him as a technician. He’s supposed to fix your stuck doors for you.”

“I’ve fixed it myself.”

“You’ve fixed it? It sounded like you punched it out of its fucking frame.”

There was a moment of silence. The line remained open, but Dr. Morro didn’t speak.

“Is…is everything alright in there?” asked Leorio after a pause. “Are you sure you can’t let me in to check? I could at least help you with whatever’s left of the door.”

“I assure you, doctor, what’s happened with the door by no means constitutes a medical emergency, and therefore is not within your purview. There’s no need for your well-meaning assistance. Go back to bed, Costu.”

“Paladiknight.”

“Good point. Costu would’ve known better than to come barging over here in the first place.”

Leorio sighed. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on in there.”

“I told you, the door—”

“Are you alone?”

“I’d prefer to be left alone.”

“Are you safe?”

“Well, I…” Dr. Morro started, but stopped. “Yes.”

Hearing the pause, Leorio took a deep breath and tried to calm down, clear his mind, remove his feelings of frustration from the situation at hand. He tried a new approach, flipping on the professional bedside manner of a helpful and nonthreatening care provider who only had Dr. Morro’s best interests at heart. He was pretty sure it wasn’t working, but he needed to at least do something to get Dr. Morro to talk and give him better hints towards the truth of what was really going on.

“Are you good on supplies?” asked Leorio. Dr. Morro let out an inquisitive grunt, more out of surprise than curiosity. “Kurapika told me you’re hold up in there with your own provisions.”

“I have plenty here.”

“When was the last shipment of supplies to this station?”

“After the basin was transferred over to your Association, when the first Hunter arrived. They were airdropped, and he dropped in with them.”

“I’ve seen the inventory records for that shipment. Nothing else has arrived since then?”

“No. Supplies are restocked infrequently. Kurapika was supposed to check and notify your Association if anything more was needed.”

“You never remembered to give him that assignment,” Leorio pointed out. Dr. Morro grumbled in the shape of an excuse Leorio ignored. “Lucky for you, I’ll be getting started on that while I’m here.”

“Oh? Won’t busywork like that interfere with your investigation?”

“I told you. I’m not here just to investigate Dr. Costu’s death and leave. I’ve joined the team. So, perhaps we should start working together as members of the same team. Maybe then we might actually manage to get something, anything, done. Wouldn’t that be a concept?”

Dr. Morro let out a derisive snort. While Leorio agreed the idea of getting Dr. Morro to accomplishing anything within the parameters of his original assignment was risible, he had a feeling Dr. Morro wasn’t trying to be self-deprecating.

”At any rate,” said Leorio, dropping the upbeat tone entirely. “I’ve done a rough estimate of how much food you might have versus the amount left in the station’s first floor storerooms. On the high end, you might be seeing two, maybe two and half months. On the low end, it’s three weeks. I’ll get a more exact number later. Then, once I’m sure you’re out of food, I’m coming in to check that you aren’t starving to death.”

“The situation can change in three weeks. Even more in two months. We’ll see.”

“ _You’ll_ definitely see,” said Leorio. Feeling sore about Dr. Morro getting creepy and hanging up on him the night before, he ended the call right there. If Dr. Morro wanted to have the last word, he’d have to crawl out of the control room and tell Leorio to his face.

Kurapika was awake when Leorio got back. He didn’t move or say anything, but Leorio could feel eyes on him. He fired a timid smile into the darkness in apology, as if his arrival itself had woken Kurapika up, and not the banging sounds from the control room earlier.

“He does that,” said Kurapika a few minutes later, when Leorio was already in bed and staring at the ceiling. “Sometimes.”

“What?”

“Dr. Morro. There’s something in the control room he wants to take apart.”

“What is it?”

Kurapika paused a moment to roll onto his back and rest his hands on his stomach. “A room,” he said. “There’s a room he can’t get into.”

“What’s the big deal? What’s in the room?”

“He says it’s equipment.” 

“You didn’t check?”

“No. The previous Hunter sealed it with Nen.” 

“You couldn’t remove it?”

“It’s not that I couldn’t. I’ve removed a similar Nen seal from a book the same Hunter left behind. It’s only that I don’t have any abilities similar to that. If I tried to replicate it, it wouldn't be as strong. It might weaken over time and fail. So, I didn’t break the seal. I figured it’d be easier to keep Dr. Morro out if I kept it as it was.” Kurapika took a deep breath. “Think about it. There has to be a reason the other Hunter sealed the room off instead of relocating its contents, right? I didn't feel prepared to handle whatever that reason might’ve been on my own....”

Kurapika trailed off with an apologetic note in his voice. Frowning, Leorio thought back to what he’d heard earlier. 

“It sounded like he tore something down just now.”

Kurapika didn’t make any sound or indication of surprise. “Mhm. I think he probably pulled down one of the lockers on the same wall, maybe trying to find some other way around the sealed door.”

“Should I go check on it?”

“You probably don’t need to. The entire room is sealed. He’ll eventually hit a Nen barrier he can’t get through.” 

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. We’ll check tomorrow. If you break into the control room now, especially since it’s the middle of the night...well, we don’t know what he’s liable to attempt if he thinks he’s being backed into a corner. You should try to get some sleep before you have to deal with him.”

Leorio looked over, and saw through the dim light from the hall that Kurapika had turned his head and was watching him. Leorio looked away and grunted in agreement. He stared hard at the ceiling, torn between an innate need to act right then and there, and the knowledge that occasionally it was better to wait, to rest, to prepare. 

“But, aren’t you curious?” he asked after a pause. “It might be dangerous, whatever’s in there.”

“Or, it might be something specific to Dr. Morro that he needed to be separated from.” 

Leorio winced internally at the insinuation and spied another quick glance over just in time to see that Kurapika’s gaze had fallen on the slumbering figure of Pairo in the cot between them. He didn’t seem to realize that Leorio was watching him, but kept speaking, still watching Pairo. “Didn’t you meet with the Hunter who was here before us?” he asked. “He was insistent about Dr. Morro being delusional, but also stated that Dr. Morro was harmless.”

“I actually didn’t have time to speak to him,” said Leorio, sounding embarrassed at what now felt like a tremendous oversight on his part. “I headed over here as soon as possible and read his case file instead.”

“If you read his file at least, then you know it’s ambiguous in parts. It’s hard to tell what was going on between him, Dr. Morro, and Dr. Costu,” said Kurapika. He began to move, and Leorio looked away, back up to the ceiling, so he wouldn’t be caught staring. “Still, from what I’ve seen, I believe he ran away in fear of...something else out here. I don’t think he was in danger from Dr. Morro or Dr. Costu. Maybe the sealed room has something to do with it. Maybe it’s smarter to keep it sealed.”

Leorio felt a chill run through him at the thought of whatever, or whoever, might need to be locked away behind a Nen sealed door not only to keep Dr. Morro out, but to keep whatever it was in. Leaving Dr. Morro alone didn’t feel like the right choice, but Leorio couldn’t imagine an alternative that wouldn’t end with the two of them being force to monitor Dr. Morro every second of the day. As Kurapika had rightly figured out, keeping Dr. Morro placated and out of the way in the control room was the most practical option.

“Where did you go before?” asked Kurapika curiously, stirring Leorio from his increasingly anxious thoughts. “I mean when you were out just now.”

“Oh,” said Leorio. “I was just restless. Needed some air.”

“I see,” said Kurapika. “Dr. Costu used to go on walks, too When he couldn’t sleep. Sometimes when I was working late, I’d run into him.”

“Yeah, they teach us doctors that in medical school,” said Leorio. Kurapika didn’t make a sound. There was only Leorio laughing dully at his own joke which he himself didn’t find all that funny, either.

“Anyway,” said Leorio more seriously. He sighed and adjusted his position in bed. “Speaking of Dr. Costu…. I’ll check on him tomorrow. You’ll have to show me where exactly he is.”

“That’ll be easy.”

“I’d also like to know where some other places are, like the library, for example. I’ve studied maps of the station and have an idea, of course, but it’s different, actually being here. I’d appreciate it if you could show me around a bit.”

“You’re right. It won’t be a problem. I’ll give you a tour.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“And also, Leorio?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

“For…?”

“I’m glad you’re here. I wish you weren’t, but you are, and I’m…I’m actually glad it’s you.”

Leorio frowned into the darkness. He hadn’t felt too guilty for making Kurapika feel bad about him being there until right now, when Kurapika was suddenly thanking him for it. “Happy to hear it,” he said.

Kurapika rolled over, facing away from Leorio and towards the wall. Leorio took the hint and turned over as well. He called out another goodnight. Kurapika once again answered. With that, Leorio shut his eyes and attempted to sleep.


	17. Double Take

“There was a risk, with burying the body outside, that the visitor would pass in and out of the station without observing the proper decontamination protocols,” explained Kurapika as he led the way down to the subterranean level of the station used for bulk storage. Much of the machinery and electronics that kept the station functioning and habitable were also on the lower levels, which made the hum of activity louder and more persistent as they descended. Since the station’s most vital operations were running satisfactorily, Kurapika hadn’t had much of a reason to explore this level on his own. After storing Dr. Costu’s body and observing the resurrections of his inhuman doppelgänger, he’d stopped coming down altogether. He didn’t like how cold and buzzing the place was, or how deep the shadows were. Running into Dr. Costu’s brother felt far eerier there than anywhere else, even if it were somewhat more expected.

“Speaking of visitors, Segundino will most likely be there already, laying around or sitting next to the body. Be ready for that,” said Kurapika. “It might not be that weird for you, since you never met Dr. Costu, but…. Well, they’re very similar. Identical twins, or so he told me.”

“Who told you?”

“The brother. And before you ask, I checked, and he doesn’t know if he’s—the real version of himself—if he’s alive or dead. Nor does he know why Dr. Costu reacted how he did when he saw him.”

Leorio nodded, rubbing his chin in thought as they headed down the stairs. “Does he speak to you often when you’re there?”

“A little. He doesn’t speak a lot of the Hunter language. Only the basics. Who, what, where, and when sort of stuff. Short answers. Simple descriptions of himself.”

“Do you know how he’ll react if someone approaches Dr. Costu’s body?”

Kurapika shrugged and entered the code for the door. “He doesn’t seem to mind.”

“He doesn’t know me.”

“He didn’t mind Pairo,” said Kurapika. The door opened, but he didn’t pass through right away. Leorio caught up to him and asked with a short “hm?” if there were something wrong. Kurapika shook his head hard, as if dispelling a thought, and kept moving. Once they were in the downstairs hallway, he stopped again. Leorio waited.

“There’s one thing,” said Kurapika. “I just remembered now. He doesn’t know you. That makes sense. He shouldn’t know you, because he’s never met you.”

“Yes?” said Leorio, admittedly confused, but patient.

“I never told him my name, but he knew it when we met. He knew my name was Kurapika.”

“Maybe Dr. Costu told him?”

“That was my first thought. But, then it occurred to me that Dr. Costu had no time to explain who Dr. Morro or I were before he died. He had no real reason to. Judging by the state he was in on the video recordings...it’s hard to believe he’d have said anything about us at all. There was a lot more going on.”

“Do you still have those video recordings?”

“Yes. Dr. Morro made copies of the relevant parts for me when I was investigating who Segundino was, where he’d come from.”

“I should see them, after this.”

“I’ll pull them up when we’re back,” said Kurapika. He motioned for Leorio to follow him, and continued down the hall. 

The air was chill, but not damp like a basement or cellar. The walls and floor were impersonal, gray concrete and painted cinder blocks. Doors interrupted the narrow hallway at intervals and lead into labeled rooms Leorio didn’t stop to read. It reminded him of the passageways of a ship, just wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side, though the three of them chose to walk in a single-file line behind Kurapika. When they reached the end of the hallway, Kurapika opened another door. This led into a vast warehouse. The air warmed. Towards the back, a few boxes with heavy metal doors stood lined up. Kurapika went to one near the end. Its airtight seal opened with a sticking sound as he pulled back the lever and nodded for Leorio to step inside. As Leorio did, Kurapika switched on the light above him.

Across pallets on the floor, surrounded on three sides by stacks of mostly empty wire shelves, lay a human figure covered in a plastic sheet for a shroud. Leorio was familiar with the sight and glanced over it with a disaffected, medical eye. What he found more disturbing than the shrouded figure was the familiar man he’d run into his first night. At the moment, the man was sitting slumped against the wall at the shrouded figure’s head. His legs were stretched out with his hands resting between them, while his head had lolled over towards his shoulder. He looked if he’d nodded off there waiting for someone, as limp and lifeless as a ragdoll frozen solid. Without intending to, Leorio shivered and blamed the obvious cold. Such a relaxed, open position wasn’t one people typically froze to death in.

“I guess he’s sleeping right now,” said Kurapika, peering in from the door. Pairo clung to the frame beside him, also staying outside, out of the cold.

“Sleeping?” asked Leorio. He pointed at Segundino, and Kurapika nodded. “Isn’t he dead?”

“He’ll wake up if you touch him. It doesn’t take long. If you need him to move out of you way, just kick his foot, and he’ll come around.”

Segundino was, in fact, in Leorio’s way. Making a face, he nudged the man’s foot with his own and was shocked at how pliant it turned out to be, easily rolling aside as if he’d nudged the foot of a sleeping stranger in the street and not a walk-in freezer. The man wasn’t frozen. He didn’t even look as if he were cold, despite only wearing thin scrubs and being coated in ice.

As if Leorio had hit play on a video, the man resumed breathing. All signs of life clicked into place, and a moment later he was yawning and lifting his head. He watched Leorio blankly, waiting to hear what Leorio wanted from him. Speechless, Leorio gestured for him to move. The man grunted and pulled his legs in to stand. He crawled to the foot of the shrouded figure, allowing Leorio to take his place at its head.

Leorio snapped his hanging mouth shut and knelt beside Dr. Costu’s remains. He pulled away the plastic sheet. Unlike his brother, the dead man’s body was unmistakably stiff, as if it were carved from ice with flesh stretched over it. It’d have to be thawed out to perform an autopsy, and that would take days. For now, Leorio could only check the visible body for obvious, external signs of injury. Anything more would have to wait at least a week.

“We should move him to a cooler,” said Leorio. “Do you know where any are? That are big enough?”

“Yeah. We can clear one out,” said Kurapika, indicating himself and Segundino. He beckoned Segundino to the door. After telling Pairo to stay with Leorio, he and Segundino left.

“Are you…cold?” asked Leorio to Pairo, who’d stepped inside and was holding the door open behind him so they wouldn’t get shut in. 

“I’m okay,” said Pairo.

Leorio was shivering. His hands trembled as he moved the plastic sheet covering Dr. Costu aside the rest of the way and inspected the dead man’s hands and face, anything visible from beneath his frozen clothes. There was a bandage on Dr. Costu’s hand, but nothing that refuted Kurapika’s claim Dr. Costu had committed suicide by injection. With a grunt, he pulled the sheet back into place and looked down at the pallets the man was laid out across. He rocked the body slightly and was relieved to see it wasn’t stuck. Moving him would be straightforward.

“We’ve got a cooler ready,” said Kurapika, popping his head in. “One of the coolers might be broken, though, so, I’m going to look at it while I’m down here. If you need help carrying the body, Segundino is coming back.”

“I won’t,” said Leorio. With uncommon strength, he worked his arms under the body and lifted it from a squat. The long, unbalanced shape was awkward to carry, painful from the cold and slipping in the sheet Leorio had wrapped closer around it. Pairo held the door for him so he could shuffle out of the freezer more easily. As he stepped across the threshold, Leorio nodded to Kurapika, who led the way to the cooler. Segundino crossed paths with them on the way and immediately turned to follow, knowing without asking that his brother was on the move.

Once the body was set down in the cooler, Leorio brought Pairo and Segundino back with him to the freezer to collect the pallets. Only after the body was back in an elevated position did Leorio announce to Segundino he could go inside and rejoin it. Leorio and Pairo shut the cooler door behind them and followed the sounds of Kurapika muttering to himself nearby in agitation. He was at the end of the row of walk-in coolers, squatting and frowning at the narrow space between the last cooler and the wall. A puddle of water spread out arm’s length from the cooler’s back corner, ending close to Kurapika’s feet. Kurapika groaned and glanced over the laminated manual in his hands, the furrow in his brow deepening. Leorio came over and squatted down next to him.

“Is it leaking?” asked Leorio.

“That was my first assumption but…it’s dry inside all the coolers. No condensation. No sign of anything liquid having been knocked over. I don’t know where it’s coming from.” Kurapika shifted the manual onto one knee and scratched his head. “To be fair, I’m actively teaching myself how refrigeration systems work right at this very moment. The problem is, all the manual talks about is water collecting _inside_ the cooler.” Kurapika sighed and looked at Leorio hopefully. “Are you handy?” he asked. “Do you know? I know maintenance is technically my job, but I’m not exactly trained how to do any of this.”

Leorio made a doubtful face at Kurapika and shrugged, admitting Kurapika’s best-read guess was as good as Leorio’s utterly oblivious one. Leorio knew the importance of refrigeration in the medical field, but he hadn’t got around to studying the mechanics of how cooling systems worked. Although he’d have liked to, he wasn’t able to replicate an entire hospital using only his Nen, and so, wouldn’t be constructing his own refrigerators out of aura any time soon. His ability as an Emitter only went so far. When it came to replicating vital tools and equipment, there were some things one really needed an exceptional Conjuror for.

“Is it possible to move the cooler?” asked Leorio. At any rate, he could at least offer manpower. “Maybe look behind it?”

“I don’t know. And we can’t even be sure it’s this one, or one further down that’s just leaking in this direction. Maybe the ground slopes this way?”

“If a backed up drain or hose is the problem, there has to be some kind of way to get to it for repairs.”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out right now,” said Kurapika, waving the manual at him pointedly. “It just takes a while to read.”

“I see. I guess keep doing that,” said Leorio. “The answer has to be in there somewhere, right?” 

He leaned back until he was sitting on the ground, idly observing the mess. Beside him, Kurapika was focusing so hard on the manual he’d started mumbling to himself as he read. Wherever the leak was coming from, nothing was flowing now. The surface of the water was even, almost perfectly still save for small, fluctuating vibrations created by the humming row of coolers. Leorio glanced up and around, bored, but not about to leave Kurapika alone. A malfunction with the coolers could ruin Dr. Costu’s body while Leorio worked and waited, blissfully unaware, upstairs. Fixing whatever was wrong was as much his priority as Kurapika's. 

After reading for some time, Kurapika stood up, moving to where the end of the puddle met the wall. He squinted down the space between the cooler box and the same wall, but couldn’t see far past the shadows. 

“Could you somehow…” Kurapika started, gesturing vaguely with his hand before deciding on how best to describe what he wanted. “Could you maybe sound out what’s back there without me having to figure out some way to move anything?”

“I would have to know accepted parameters for how a walk-in cooler should be set up when it’s working properly, otherwise, I can’t really tell if there’s anything wrong,” said Leorio. He saw the disappointed look on Kurapika’s face and added, “But…maybe if we clean this up and shine a flashlight back there, maybe with my eyes and my Nen together I can figure out better what I’m looking at.”

It was better than nothing. Kurapika called Pairo over, and the two of them went to collect mops and buckets from another storeroom, leaving Leorio for a few minutes to himself. Leorio went to where Kurapika had been standing, but also found it impossible to see anything beyond the solid black line between the cooler and the wall. Direct light didn’t reach this corner of the warehouse due to the bulky coolers. As nothing was stored there, it probably hadn’t mattered to earlier researchers that the space remained dark. Only now, when something was broken, was it suddenly a problem.

The hazy light reflected in the puddle caught a faint bit of movement that wasn’t vibrations. Wherever the leak was coming from, it’d started up again. Leorio knelt, and, figuring it was worth at least a try, set two angled fingers on the ground and tapped lightly, emitting as much of a focused pulse of Nen as he could towards the coolers. If he could find where the water was dripping or flowing from, he could at least get a rough idea how far away the problem was.

It was close. Leorio stood back up and went to the cooler. He sent a few more Nen pulses through the ground to reorient himself and form a better mental map of the spaces he couldn’t physically see. Once he was sure he knew the location of the miniscule movements—more like a thin flow than droplets—he placed two fingers on the cooler and sent a Nen pulse through it as well.

Leorio frowned. He tapped again. He tried a stronger pulse. He adjusted his posture to get a better angle. For the next few minutes, he went through every positioning trick he could think of to direct his Nen where he wanted, and yet, he kept missing the target. The same thin, flowing movement wasn’t coming from anywhere on the cooler. He tapped the ground again to re-anchor himself and check that the leak was still flowing. It was. Tapping the cooler a few more times confirmed it wasn’t coming from there.

Leorio heard the noisy knocking of mop handles against empty plastic buckets as Kurapika and Pairo came back, but he ignored them and went to the wall. Pursing his lips, he performed his Nen palpation on the last place close enough to be a possible source. Almost too quickly, he found it.

“You’re going to hate hearing this,” said Leorio when Kurapika set down his bucket and held out a third mop for Leorio. “But, the leak? Whatever it is? It’s not the coolers.”

Kurapika took a long, deep breath and nodded for him to continue, ready for the worst. 

“It’s the wall,” said Leorio. He reached out and took the mop, and Kurapika’s arm fell to his side. “What’s above us?” asked Leorio. “And what’s next door?”

“Nothing’s next door,” said Kurapika. “It’s dirt. Above us are some rooms we aren’t using. Maybe a lab.”

“Should we check them out?”

Kurapika said something to Pairo, who shrugged. They started talking, not arguing over who would go, but instead trying to see if the other had a better idea of where the leak upstairs might be coming from. Pairo was dubious of Kurapika’s suggestion of a lab, which Leorio understood because there was either no special word for “laboratory” in the language the two were speaking, or Kurapika didn’t feel like wracking his brain for it mid-conversation when it was something Pairo would already know. Leorio stared at the puddle as he waited. It’d started spreading noticeably in the interim and was nearly touching the side of his shoe. He stepped away while also glancing over to Kurapika’s feet, ready to warm him.

“Ku—?” he began in the back of his throat but stopped in alarm. For a second he thought he was glancing over Pairo’s darker reflection in the water. His next thought was that he was looking at a distortion caused by the puddle’s wobbly surface and amplified by the darkness, except Kurapika was standing out of the shadows, in the light. The darker version of him in the reflection was someone else, someone Leorio couldn’t say definitively wasn’t Kurapika until he’d squeezed his eyes shut and done a double-take, confirming it. In fact, it was so obvious after this he was baffled why he’d even thought the stranger he was seeing could possibly have been Kurapika at all.

Leorio dropped his mop, realizing too late that it was falling towards the water. Pairo, who could see the look of alarm on Leorio’s face, grabbed Kurapika’s sleeve without asking and pulled him away before the mop landed with a splash. Leorio stepped away as well, but had no way of knowing if he’d moved fast enough to avoid getting wet. 

“Leave everything. Let’s go,” said Leorio, motioning to the door. Kurapika, though frustratingly contrary whenever Leorio told him to do anything he didn’t fully understand, took one look at Leorio's face and decided he could ask what this was about later. Something that’d scared Leorio had to be worth shutting up and doing what he was told for a few minutes.

Leorio led the way out of the store room and upstairs, checking over and over that Kurapika and Pairo where keeping up. He didn’t stop until they’d reached the infirmary. Once there, he collapsed onto a chair in the waiting area to catch his breath. Pairo and Kurapika exchanged glances over him and shrugged, neither of them sure what’d set him off. They gave him several minutes to recuperate, with Kurapika disappearing into a break room to rehydrate and microwave something for lunch. Pairo, meanwhile, worked on setting plates and cups on the infirmary’s reception desk. Leorio watched intently as they came and went, hardly blinking, as if he were studying them for subtle aberrations in their movements or expressions.

“Is that safe?” asked Leorio, speaking for the first time in several long minutes to ask about the glass of water Kurapika was sprinkling a flavored, fortified drink packet into.

“I can’t promise it’s effective, but I’m pretty sure it’s safe,” said Kurapika. He flipped the packet over to read the ingredient information on the other side.

“I mean the water. Is the water here safe to drink?”

“Oh,” said Kurapika. “It should be. We don’t really have options when it comes to water sources, so, we have to sort of trust it’s safe or else die of dehydration.” 

Leorio frowned, thoughtful and quiet. Kurapika considered the glass in front of him.

“Unless…” said Kurapika. “You’re not suggesting that whatever broke downstairs means the station’s water supply is compromised, are you? I’ll admit, it’s not going to help us if a third of our water ends up all over a warehouse floor by tomorrow afternoon. After lunch, I’ll go down to finish cleaning and get a better look. You can use your Nen up here to locate me below, so we can pinpoint where the leak is—”

“I don’t mean wasting water. I mean,” Leorio took a deep breath. “I mean how well can you tell normal water apart from whatever’s in the lake?”

Kurapika was quiet for a moment, not because he didn’t know, but because he needed the pause to make sure Leorio got a good look at the patronizing expression on his face.

“That’s paranoid thinking,” admonished Kurapika. “The first unofficial rule for how not to go crazy out here is to never question daily essentials like water.”

Leorio rolled his eyes. “Since when were you an expert in how not to go crazy out here?” he asked. “You’ve broken every rule for how not to go crazy since you arrived. Hell, you were even breaking them _before_ your medical officer killed himself and left you with Morro for company.”

“You’re wrong,” said Kurapika. “I followed the rules as well as I could. I spent more time around Dr. Costu than he wanted me to, even after I was well enough to leave the infirmary. I gave myself involved tasks as a distraction. Indeed, why do you think I even try to get along with Pairo?”

Leorio stammered at Kurapika for a moment before insisting, “Because _he’s your friend_?”

“My friend died, Leorio. He’s not my friend.”

“He’s right there,” said Leorio. Pairo, standing nearby and waiting out the argument, looked up. “He can hear you. He understands what you’re saying. How can you talk like that? Don’t you think it affects him?”

Pairo looked away when Kurapika’s gaze shifted over to him. Unmoved, Kurapika went back to pouring drink mix into glasses and stirring. Leorio spat a few derogatory names in his direction, but was met with the same indifference.

Although the last thing Leorio wanted was to share a meal with someone who was pissing him off, he joined Kurapika and Pairo at the reception desk for lunch. No-one spoke. They busily swallowed the prepared food down like medicine, a chore to be completed before they could get back to work.

“I’m glad you’re hungry even though you’re starting to get paranoid about the water,” said Kurapika, not hiding the blatant condescending edge in his tone. Leorio grunted and finished his last spoonful.

“I’m not getting paranoid about the station’s water supply,” he said. Even if the food was terrible, he was calmer for having satiated his appetite. His energy levels had also gone back up, thanks to the powdered drink that tasted like minerals mixed with caffeine pills and lemon syrup. “I don’t think what’s downstairs in the warehouse is water. I think it’s from….” He hesitated and set down his empty glass. “You know, outside.”

“We’re above the water table. The lake’s channels don’t run this high up.” 

“Maybe fluid dynamics would deem it impossible, but, since when has this lake behaved like a fluid subject to the laws of physics? Would being ‘this high up’ really stop it?”

“The station’s built on solid rock.”

“But would that stop it? Rocks can fracture, especially after you blow holes in them and bolt a station down.”

“So you’re saying you think the lake is invading the station?”

“I’d argue it got a foot in the door long before flooding our basement,” said Leorio, trying hard not to look or nod towards Pairo. “But yes, I don’t think that’s normal water collecting downstairs. It’s not coming _from_ the wall; it’s coming in _through_ the wall.”

“Direct exposure to the lake would’ve made us sick,” said Kurapika. He didn’t want to outright disagree with Leorio, but he couldn’t fight his natural inclination to sound matter-of-fact and dismissive, as though he were correcting Leorio instead of joining him in hypothesizing. “We’re fine. You were a bit paranoid earlier, but you weren’t hallucinating or anything. You weren’t raving. I know what it’s like to get too close to the water, and I—”

“Stop right there,” said Leorio. “You got close to the lake? When? Who sent you? Was it Morro or Costu? If it was Costu again, I swear….”

“My point is that nothing happened to us downstairs. Everything was normal.”

“No, it wasn’t,” said Leorio. Kurapika waited impassively, reserving his judgment. It took Leorio a moment to figure out how to explain. He ran both hands through his hair several times while trying to think. “Everything wasn’t normal. Maybe I was affected more, since I was closer for longer. I kept bending down to check the ground. I stayed behind while you got the mops with Pairo. So, maybe it got to me more, but…I saw something weird in the water. I don’t know what, or rather who, or well, I felt like I did know…but it was like piecing together an image from ripples in a pond. Even though it was mostly still and mostly familiar, I couldn’t put it together. I dropped the mop when it started to turn to look in my direction. I didn’t want to see its face. I didn’t want to know.”

Kurapika’s crossed arms squeezed tighter over his chest. He looked as if he were sleeping with his chin lowered. In reality, he was lost in his own recollections of dread and the sinister air surrounding the explosion sight. For a moment, he was reliving his near-encounter with the unknown entity in the caverns below his feet, too close, bubbling up to meet him, haunting his steps. When he’d come back to the station afterwards, Dr. Costu had been dead, and the visitors were only just arriving.

“You should get some rest,” said Kurapika at long last. “It’ll help.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Then, maybe we should check on Dr. Morro.”

“True. It’s my responsibility to check in on him every day until I have a good enough reason to knock the door down and drag him out of there.”

Kurapika made a face. “You’re waiting for a good reason?” he asked.

“Well, where will we put him that he won’t just crawl back to the control room at the soonest opportunity?” asked Leorio, indicating the space all round. “He’s not hurting anyone where he is. If we have to forcibly remove him, it’ll be because we’re leaving the station with him in tow. Acting sooner will probably just create a situation where we’re wasting time and energy babysitting and re-capturing him over and over, which will only make his paranoia worse and potentially escalate to some sort of a standoff that puts everyone at risk.”

“I see,” said Kurapika, not without a certain sullen disappointment.

“Oh c'mon, you could’ve dragged him out yourself by now, and you didn’t,” said Leorio. “Me being here doesn’t change all the ways dragging him out of the perfectly good cell he’s already in would be a huge, unnecessary waste of time.”

Kurapika frowned. “I might’ve left him in there to keep the situation manageable, but... I still don’t like that he’s in there, potentially privy to everything we’re doing, while we have no idea what he’s up to.”

“What he’s up to is staring at video screens and computer monitors, and occasionally trying to get around what for him is a virtually unbreakable Nen seal. There’s not much else he could be up to than that.”

“It’s a control room. What does he have control of?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Leorio assured him. “Not only has the ‘control’ part of the control room been mostly redundant for over a decade, but Costu and Toquo made sure to re-allocate anything that might’ve been dangerous for Morro to get his hands on to other parts of the building. Morro mostly just has control of the security cameras here and in the basin. He’s not running anything.”

“Who is running it?”

“It’s automated. Don’t you know that?” 

Kurapika glowered. “Of course I know that,” he grumbled. “But, what I don’t know is to what extent it’s been automated. No-one briefed me on how exactly the station was being run, either before or after I was rushed out here, and a lot of my material was outdated information that was written back when whole large teams of people were running this place.”

“Oh,” said Leorio, making an apologetic face. “Well. In that case…. Maintenance teams arrived to inspect the station and refit it to be run with a minimum of three staff members. It was part of what the Association required before the station and its existing staff became their responsibility. Those teams consulted Costu on Morro’s condition and implemented permanent changes in line with what Costu and Toquo had already done. Therefore, if anything goes wrong, it’s me or you who has to take charge. Morro’s cut off.”

Kurapika only looked a little reassured by this knowledge. He was either unhappy he’d assumed Dr. Morro had more power than he did, or he was displeased by the prospect of fixing anything major in the station should it break down. Still, knowing Kurapika, Leorio suspected it might be simpler than that. He was probably sore about Leorio giving him a good reason not to hassle Dr. Morro more than necessary. Kurapika would’ve appreciated the easy target.

“Let’s get going, then,” said Kurapika. 

They left the dirty spoons and trays on the desk and set out for the control room. Leorio outpaced them in the hall and was soon leading the way. Even with two sets of footsteps accompanying Leorio’s, it was noticeably quieter than the night before. Something told him that this wasn’t just because Dr. Morro wasn’t ripping rooms apart at his leisure. Leorio brushed the anxious feeling of anticipation off, however, chalking it up to the lingering effect of whatever he’d seen in the water downstairs. He felt a little better after they arrived to the nearest control room door and found nothing amiss. He knocked, but, as usual, no-one answered. Further behind Leorio, taking his time, Kurapika let out a derisive snort. Pairo hurried ahead to pick up the intercom receiver.

Seconds later, Pairo was shouting. Leorio didn’t understand what he was saying, but responded sooner than Kurapika. He spotted the cause for alarm in an instant and, in two long bounds, headed straight for the door he’d been knocking on the night before. 

Three severed fingers lay scattered, cast aside in the realization of a swirling, abstract image on the floor. Tossed violently across the aisle and leaving a messy mark on the wall where it’d hit, was what remained of the hand the fingers had been severed from. The skin was pale and blotchy. When Leorio got closer, he realized what had looked like cryptic swirling patterns, blotted and smeared into the now dried blood, were letters oriented towards the door. 

It was a message, presumably from Dr. Morro.

“No, Dr. Paladinighte,” it said. “I am not alone”


	18. Inconvenience

“He spelled your name wrong.”

“Thanks. I noticed,” said Leorio with a sigh. “Be useful and get me some sterile gloves and something to put samples in, why don’t you?”

Kurapika didn’t listen. He knelt down beside Leorio, holding his chin in his hand and studying the scene. “You go,” he said. “Unlike fixing a malfunctioning cooler, this sort of stuff I have some experience in.”

Leorio almost demanded to know what experience Kurapika could possibly have before remembering Kurapika used to work for the mafia. Even worse, he’d been involved in the flesh collector’s market, which meant not only did he have experience dealing with the sorts of people who’d do things like rip out fingernails and cut off hands, he was also versed in relevant, practical aspects of the trade related to states of decomposition and severed remains. 

Leorio did as he was told and left. He took Pairo with him to help carry supplies. When he got back, Kurapika told him a few things he’d already guessed. The message had to have been written the night before, maybe in the early morning. Leorio helped narrow down the timeframe by confirming when he’d checked on Dr. Morro after the disturbance from the control room. They concluded the message had been written sometime after, perhaps as soon as Leorio had gone.

“The hand over here isn’t Dr. Morro’s,” said Kurapika. Leorio arched a brow. “Nor, of course, are the fingers. They aren’t the same skin tone.”

Leorio had never seen Dr. Morro. There were no photos of him on the Hunter website, since the Hunter Association hadn’t taken any interest in the Solaris Basin until well after Dr. Morro had arrived. It was difficult to tell if knowing the hand wasn’t Dr. Morro’s was better or worse. From the standpoint of a medical professional, Leorio supposed he felt a modicum of relief. If the hand had belonged to a visitor sent by the lake, then it was likely no-one had died. Or rather, no-one was dead...yet.

“Ready to go in?” asked Leorio, indicating the control room. Kurapika held up a hand for him to wait.

“I’m not sure. Hold on. We need to think about this.”

Leorio was impressed by how quickly Kurapika had changed his tune about breaking into the control room and confronting Dr. Morro with Leorio to back him up. Granted, a severed hand and a message written in blood changed things.

“It’s reasonable to assume he’s attacked whoever is in there with him,” explained Kurapika. “It might be safer for us to leave him as he is, undisturbed.”

“Are you suggesting we lock him in the control room?” asked Leorio. He was already shaking his head even as Kurapika nodded. “We don’t know how much food or what supplies he has, how quickly he’s going through it all. He might run out tomorrow for all we know. Then, there’s the factor of the person in there with him. Are they eating and using up resources, too? Are they antagonizing him? Is he in danger?”

“Even if we get him out, we can’t separate him from whoever is in there. They’ll find him no matter what. Our safety is more important.”

“I’m as responsible for him as I am you, Kurapika. Leaving him to fend for himself isn’t an option for me.”

“I don’t see why it’s a problem. Before this you said yourself that we should leave him inside.”

“Before this he hadn’t taken someone’s hand off and written me a message in blood on the floor.”

“The fact that he’s done that is exactly why we keep him inside the control room,” insisted Kurapika. He rested a hand on the wall, chains soundless on the tiles despite their sudden appearance. Leorio wasn’t intimidated by Kurapika’s chains, though he expected Kurapika’s inclination to make them more apparent when challenged was an unavoidable habit. 

“What if he gets the idea that you or I are fake?” Kurapika went on. “What if he tries to kill us next? Think about it, when you first got here, and I…I—” Kurapika cut himself off with a short sound of exasperation. He looked over towards the bloodied door, away from Leorio, pulling his hand back from the wall at the same time. “I’m only saying we lock the doors to the control room so he can’t get out without us knowing,” he concluded. “He’ll be able to monitor us while he’s in there, you know. He’ll know when he has the opportune moment to try something.”

“You really think he’s going to attack us? If he thinks we’re fake, wouldn’t he know we aren’t going to die?”

“It doesn’t mean he won’t try. Maybe he’ll intend for it to incapacitate us as a step in a much larger plan.”

“But, we aren’t a threat to him. Pairo and Segundino aren’t threats to him, either. We’re all harmless.”

“We don’t know if whoever’s in there with him is harmless. We can’t predict what will happen if we force open that door and barge in. It could be a trap. Whoever or whatever is in there might be hoping we storm in. Maybe Dr. Morro didn’t even write the message. I can’t definitively confirm that it’s his handwriting on the ground.”

Pairo moved out of the way as Leorio clamped his mouth shut and turned on his heel, storming in the opposite direction before he lost his temper. He grumbled as he got further away about how he couldn’t believe they were really arguing this. He raised his voice to admonish Kurapika over his shoulder for basing critical decisions related to another person’s health and safety on unproven, unproductive theories. Kurapika watched the floor silently and let the words wash over him, unaffected.

“Going in circles of what-ifs like this, trying to guess without a single clue what might be going on in that room, could go on forever,” insisted Leorio when his grumbling proved to have had no effect. “You can try to delay the inevitable, but eventually, we’re going to have to face whatever is going on in there. If I have you behind me, if you back me up, nothing bad should happen. We can handle whoever or whatever’s there together. We’re more than capable of that. I don’t give a damn what it is. We can handle it.”

Kurapika, meanwhile, was crossing his arms, his feet planted in place. Leorio knew the answer in a glance and beseeched the heavens with an exasperated motion upwards as Kurapika said, firmly but clearly, “No.”

Because the only other response Leorio could possibly imagine himself making was to grab Kurapika by the shoulders and start shaking compliance out of him, Leorio excused himself. With a brisk and furious step, he paced the nearest empty hallway, swearing and gesturing in agitation as he went. Kurapika, arms still crossed, sighed and leaned into the wall across from the bloodied door. He waited. After several minutes, he slid down to the floor and shut his eyes. Pairo sat next to him and did the same.

Eventually, Leorio's pacing slowed and stopped, but it didn’t mean Leorio had given up. He appeared in the entryway, jutting his head around the corner and scowling at Kurapika and Pairo sitting together, looking perfectly united in their resolve not to cooperate.

“If I go in there alone, I might die.”

“Go and die, then,” said Kurapika with a shrug, his eyes still closed. Pairo peeked at Leorio and then back at Kurapika before re-shutting his own.

“What? You can’t possibly mean to say you don’t care whether I live or die, Kurapika.”

“I care, but I can’t stop you if that’s what you really want to do, _Leorio_.”

At this, Leorio turned on his heel and marched right back into the hallway. He kicked the corner of wall near Kurapika as he went, but Kurapika didn’t flinch. He only sighed again and shook his head.

“I’m not saying we lock him in," Kurapika called back down the hall a few minutes later. Leorio was spending more time at the opposite end, and at last, Kurapika was growing impatient. "That’s impossible. I’m only saying we put a weak Nen seal or something on the door. We can use your stronger En to check on the seals periodically, to make sure he hasn’t left. At least not through a door.”

It took a moment for Leorio to make his way back down the hall, testing Kurapika’s patience more. He looked down at Kurapika as he reemerged, still mad but ready to listen.

“What do we do if he leaves?”

“We hunt him down. There aren’t many places he can go that your En can’t reach if you push it. Naturally, he doesn’t have the strong aura a Nen user would have, but it’s not like there’s anyone else around you’re going to mistake him for.”

“And then what do we do with him? Once we find him?”

“We leave the basin with him.”

Leorio cocked his head to the side.

“We should have everything ready to go at a moment’s notice, anyway,” said Kurapika. “Maybe we don’t need to go right this second, but, if we have to, we should be able to evacuate fast.”

“We might consider evacuating now,” said Leorio. “Break Morro out and go. The water downstairs can only get higher. We might end up trapped if we wait.”

Kurapika considered this quietly. Leorio tapped his foot as he waited this time in lieu of pacing. Between them, Pairo looked at the bloody mess on the floor and the packet of gloves and vials he’d collected with Leorio sitting unused on the ground at his feet.

“If it’s in the basement already and decides to trap us, it can do so whenever it wants,” said Kurapika. “Theoretically, it can rise up and sweep the station off the cliff if it wants. It can overflow and flood the entire basin so we can’t get out. There’s more it can do than we could possibly consider or prepare for, so, we should prioritize the things that we can control and prepare for. I don’t know if I need to repeat this, but, if we can’t prove that we tried to deal with this situation before abandoning the mission, we might be held responsible for whatever happens after, and that might draw a lot of unwanted attention to who we are, why we were assigned here in the first place. That could get especially messy if it gets out that I’m not exactly the right fit for this sort of assignment and was rushed out here by the Hunter Association itself without a clear objective or training.” 

“So, we’re going to risk our health and safety to avoid a bureaucratic snafu, I hear you saying?” said Leorio, unimpressed. “We’re going to risk our very lives so we don’t inconvenience Mizaistom Nana.”

“If at the same time someone realizes I’m Kurta, it won’t be just Mizai who’s inconvenienced,” said Kurapika. Leorio, who’d drawn himself up to argue, deflated with soft puff of a sigh. “For the time being,” said Kurapika, “it’s best to avoid the subterranean levels of the station. We’ll contact headquarters, so that there’s proof we got the Association's official word on how to proceed. That way, if anything happens, it’s mostly _only_ Mizai who’ll be blamed, because he’ll be the one who told us what to do. The more everything looks like his fault, the less anyone can blame us.”

“So Mizai gets thrown under the bus?”

“He’ll throw himself. He can handle it.”

“And in the meantime, we leave Morro to his own devices, blatantly disregarding my entire role as a medical officer and my professional investment in his care and well-being.”

A regretful look crossed Kurapika’s face as he nodded. “At least until we contact Mizaistom, perhaps. So, yes; we leave him to his own devices.”

Leorio sighed and took a seat on the ground beside Kurapika, who scooted over along with Pairo to make room. For a long while, he started up at the lights on the ceiling. In the long term, Leorio had no intention of leaving Dr. Morro by himself. For now, however, there didn’t seem to be any other option. He wanted to leave, but there was no chance so close to nightfall. No matter how much he disliked the idea of lingering in the station, they were going to get themselves killed wandering around in the dark on barely marked paths. Being outside, forced to keep up with Kurapika and Leorio while unable to see anything in front of him, wouldn’t help Dr. Morro’s paranoia. He’d probably break away and run blindly back to the station, falling off a ledge or even into the damn lake itself in his hurry to escape, to hide, to get back to the claustrophobic but comfortingly familiar feeling of control and ease afforded to him by screens of relative inactivity.

At the same time, insidiously persistent, the memory of what he’d seen in the water’s reflection played in the back of Leorio's mind. His mouth twisted in displeasure. He abandoned the chain of thought he was on before it let him back to the lake, the source of Dr. Morro’s condition and of his concerns for Kurapika. Defeated, his hand fell from the back of his neck and landed heavy in his lap.

“If we contact Mizaistom this evening and he doesn’t answer, it’ll take him until tomorrow afternoon to get back to us at the earliest. It might take him another day to figure out a course of action. So, I guess…I guess maybe I can wait until then, but after that….” Leorio took a deep breath. “Listen, I have a duty, like it or not.”

“I’ll help you. Once everything’s arranged with Mizaistom, I’ll help with whatever you plan to do with Dr. Morro to get him out of here.” 

“Good,” said Leorio. “That’s good.”

Without looking over, he reached up and placed a hand on Kurapika’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly. Then, he stood back up and motioned for Pairo to bring the supplies over. Kurapika watched with passive interest as Leorio knelt beside the bloodied spot on the ground. Pairo came to sit next to him and watch as well. Leorio smiled at Kurapika and Pairo reassuringly when Kurapika accidentally caught his eye. With a quiet huff of annoyance, Kurapika directed his gaze up to the ceiling. A minute later, it’d drifted down once more towards Leorio. He stared boldly now that Leorio’s back was turned, carefully sorted fingers into separate plastic bags.


	19. Placebo

Despite having got his way earlier, Kurapika spent the rest of the evening sullen. It wasn’t like Leorio to let such a significant change pass by without remarking upon it. At first, he subtly pestered Kurapika as they sealed off access to the lower-level stairwells and a freight elevator that went all the way down to the storerooms. He far less subtly demanded to know what was Kurapika’s deal after they’d made a call to Mizaistom and left a message containing as much detail as Leorio felt they could risk. In the end, only when directly confronted, did Kurapika give him a reason. Leorio didn’t think it was the entire truth, but he was going to need longer than an evening to pry full truths out of Kurapika.

Constrained and resentful of having to share, Kurapika admitted he felt a gnawing guilt over Dr. Morro’s situation. If Kurapika had been more vigilant, less selfish, better in multiple ways at handling what had been going on, perhaps Dr. Morro would’ve been better off. Leorio, predictably, insisted Kurapika was in no way responsible. Dr. Morro hadn’t been the only one affected. Station protocols, in place for a reason, had broken down due to extenuating circumstances beyond anyone’s control. If anyone were to blame, it was both Leorio for running late, and Mizaistom for not sending him sooner.

Even as he carried on and got loud, Leorio didn’t miss the fact that Kurapika was stalling. Admitting guilt over Dr. Morro’s condition was an excellent strategy to get Leorio worked up and avoid any real discussion between them. Leorio played along. He was tired and didn’t want a heavy conversation so late. The weariness that’d poured into him outside the control room when he’d conceded to leaving Dr. Morro inside was still tugging at his conscience, weighing him down. 

All he wanted was a few hours of deep, uninterrupted sleep. That night he managed only two, tossing and turning intermittently, before waking up.

For several minutes, Leorio kept his eyes shut and let his mind wander, hoping it’d lull him back into whatever dream was already escaping. Since his first night, the effect of the lake seemed quieter, less intrusive. Maybe now that it was under his own feet, it didn’t need to squint so hard to see him. No-one knew how it was the lake was able to focus in on the minds of individuals, often at different intensities for each person in a room. The original assumption by early researchers had been that the lake sent forth uniform pulses to feel out the station and its inhabitants, meaning everyone felt the lake’s effect at the same intensity, simultaneously. This wasn’t true, but had been widely accepted as common knowledge for a shocking number of years before anyone thought to test it. Afterwards, many embarrassed researchers jumped to the dubitable conclusion that, as with most actions, the lake had simply changed its approach over time, and they’d only caught it later. Many more argued, without taking sides, that a detail considered so fundamental and universally accepted about the lake’s behavior should’ve been under diligent observation already, in case there were any future deviations that might indicate a change in the lake or its relationship to the researchers.

Surprisingly, Leorio nearly managed to put himself back to sleep, but something jolted him awake at the last minute. He realized unhappily it hadn’t been the lake. Something nearby, within the patient room they were still using as a dormitory, had caused his ears to prick up. The sounds of soft breathing had changed. Only one person was asleep. Presumably, the second person who should’ve been there had woken up and left. 

It didn’t take long to deduce that the slumbering voice was Kurapika’s. Leorio cracked an eye open and looked over, expecting to see an empty cot between them. Instead, he saw Pairo there, sitting up and staring forward, awake. As if only then picking up the right frequency, he was aware of Pairo’s soft, calm breaths hidden beneath Kurapika’s own. They should’ve been impossible to miss. Leorio chose not to think too deeply about why he had.

“You up?” asked Leorio in a whisper. Kurapika’s raspy breathing, verging on snores, continued uninterrupted. Pairo look over to Leorio, catching his eye before nodding. 

“Why?” asked Leorio next.

“Not tired,” said Pairo. Leorio nodded in knowing agreement partway without lifting his head. He swung the lower half of his body out from under the blankets and set his feet on the floor. With a motion for Pairo to be quiet and follow him, he slipped out of the room.

A few minutes later, the two of them were sitting at the reception desk turned dining table, blowing on mugs of herbal tea without sugar or milk, because Leorio couldn’t find where Kurapika put the sugar after their morning coffee, and neither Leorio nor Pairo cared for the powdered milk on offer. Beyond a quick explanation from Leorio that a hot drink might help them get to sleep, they hadn’t spoken much. Pairo took a sip too soon and grimaced. He repeated the same half a minute later, too impatient to wait for the tea to cool down.

“Even if you regenerate, you shouldn’t just burn yourself,” said Leorio. Pairo rolled his eyes at the assumption he’d been burning his tongue on purpose.

“I want to sleep,” said Pairo, frowning at the two hot mugs on the table doubtfully. “This helps? Really?”

“Medically-speaking, no, not really,” said Leorio. “I mean there’s no active ingredient that’s going to knock you out. It’s not a drug. It’s sort of more of a placebo.”

Pairo frowned harder into his drink, so close the steam ticked his nose and made him pull back with a muffled sneeze. He’d set the mug on the desk in front of him and leaned over it with his arms crossed. Every so often, he rocked forward for another tentative sip and recoiled, disappointed.

“Do you know what a placebo is?” asked Leorio.

“No. I don’t know the word.”

“It’s a treatment that a patient believes in, but which has no therapeutic value. However, because the patient believes it’s real, they might feel better psychologically if they use the treatment. At any rate, it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t do much of anything, which is the point.”

Pairo nodded. “Prartzebo,” he said with confidence.

“Pardon?”

“It’s the same.”

Leorio shrugged and blew on his tea. “If you say so.”

Pairo took a deep breath and started to break down the pronunciation of Leorio’s “pla-see-bo” in order to compare it to his own language’s pronunciation of the exact same word, but Leorio put his mug down and shushed him, motioning for him to please lower the volume. Kurapika was asleep.

“It’s the same,” insisted Pairo again in a stubborn whisper.

“I see, I see, I get it,” said Leorio. He toasted Pairo with his tea and took a careful first sip, but found it still too hot. Pairo raised a knowing eyebrow at him when he saw him grimace, and Leorio nodded before looking away guiltily.

“So, this isn’t medicine,” said Pairo, leaning over his tea and watching how it rippled when the vibrations of his back and forth rocking on the edge of the counter distorted its surface. “The medicine’s more bitter.”

“This tea is awful, but you’re right, it’s not very bitter. Might’ve under-steeped it.”

“Medicine’s whiter and gray.”

“Not all of it’s white,” said Leorio before yawning so hard he spilled a little of his drink on the desk. Feeling tired had never been his problem, of course; it was falling asleep. He was certainly plenty tired. 

“It’s to sleep,  yes,” said Pairo. “It’s white and gray”

“Hm?” asked Leorio, wiping his eyes. “To sleep?”

“To sleep,” said Pairo. He made a disgusted face at some relevant memory. “The somniferics.”

“Um…sleeping pills, you mean?”

“No, the powder. It’s not the pills.”

Leorio was in the middle of sopping up drops of spilled tea with his sleeve. He paused. “You’re a child,” he said. “Who would’ve prescribed you sleeping pills?”

“It’s not the pills,” insisted Pairo again.

“No, I mean why were you being given actual medication to help you sleep? Were you in a lot of pain? Was there no other option in your village?”

“It wasn’t in my village. Here, I don’t sleep.”

In an instant, Leorio was wide-awake. “This was Kurapika’s brilliant idea, right?” he asked to make absolutely sure. Pairo nodded and Leorio sat back heavily, a look of utter disbelief on his face. “How would he know the proper dose? How would that even be safe? Why would he even go so far as—?”

Leorio stopped himself. One reason presented itself in the back of his mind, but he hated it: In an effort to get away from Pairo, Kurapika had attempted to knock him out. This wasn’t surprising. It wasn’t even the most upsetting part of an already deeply disturbing scenario. No, what Leorio hated specifically was the description of the powder-like substance that’d been administered. The station’s infirmary didn’t stock many sleep aids, and the few that were allowed weren’t ingested in powder form. While it was possible Kurapika might’ve ground something up in an effort to lower the dose, Leorio had a far more likely, and much worse, idea.

“Did it work?” asked Leorio after he’d collected his thoughts.

Pairo look away, but said, “Yes.”

“You’re lying, right?”

Pairo made a face, deciding whether he should lie better, or just admit the truth. “I don’t tell him,” said Pairo. Leorio stared back uncomphrendingly. Several things Kurapika maybe shouldn’t know came to mind, but nothing Pairo in particular would’ve been keeping from him.

“You don’t tell him what?”

“I hate medicine. I pretended it works. I pretended I sleep. He will be worried. Pairo would sleep.”

“But you don’t sleep?”

“I don’t think I sleep. I rest. It isn’t sleeping.”

“So, you’re up all night?”

“No? I rest.”

While talking, Leorio’s tea had gone from slightly too hot to borderline cold. He drank three large mouthfuls to cut the thick feeling at the back of his throat. Pairo picked up his own cup and drank it, excited to see if it would actually work and make him any sleepier than he supposedly never was.

“I’m sorry to ask this,” said Leorio with a heavy sigh. “But, do you remember anything about where you actually came from? Anything that isn’t to do with Kurapika?”

“No,” said Pairo, all traces of the usual, neutral smile on his face gone.

“Do you remember maybe the moment you first arrived to the station?”

“I was here,” said Pairo with a helpless shrug.

“Well, what was the first thing you saw?”

“Kurapika,” said Pairo. Leorio grumbled at the futility of even asking, but Pairo wasn’t done. “I saw Kurapika far away.”

Leorio sat up a little. “Far away? Where?” he asked. No two points within the station could be considered notably far from each other unless a person was in the underground storeroom. Leorio hadn’t dared asked Kurapika yet about when he’d run into Pairo for the first time, in what circumstances. Knowing too much might’ve made Leorio paranoid and less able to focus on his own work. There were things he was more productive not knowing.

“I saw him working. He was looking down. I was below.”

“Was it in the storeroom? When he moved Costu?”

“No. It was outside.”

“You ran into him when he was working outside? Before Costu died?”

“After Costu died.”

Puzzling out timeframes wasn’t Leorio’s strongest suite, particularly not in the middle of the night while operating on next to no sleep. He skipped instead to his next relevant concern. “What was he doing outside?”

“Working?” suggested Pairo. “I think so.”

“On what?”

“Samples.”

“Of what?”

“The ground.”

“For who? Morro? Does Morro need dirt for something?”

Pairo actually laughed at him, though he stifled it with his sleeve. “Morro doesn’t need dirt,” he said. “Kurapika wanted to study it.”

“Why?”

“There was an explosion.”

The sticky, thick feeling at the back of Leorio’s throat had returned. There wasn’t enough tea in his mug to wash it away. He gaped at Pairo. 

“What exploded?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where outside was it?”

Pairo thought for a long time, but how to explain the location of the explosion was a challenge for someone who didn’t know or recognize the basin’s landmarks. Kurapika would’ve been able to explain better, but the fact that he’d never brought up an explosion left Leorio doubtful as to how much one could rely on him to cooperate.

“ _ When _ was it, at least?” asked Leorio. Pairo didn’t know the full answer to this question, either.

“It was before I was here. Kurapika told me he was sick. You, too; you said Kurapika was sick.”

“I didn’t know he was injured in an explosion. Those weren’t the sorts of injuries he reported.”

“It’s what he told me. I didn’t see it. He showed me in the window where the explosion was.”

“I want you to show me tomorrow, too. I want to know where it was,” said Leorio. Pairo nodded and sipped his tea a little faster. If Pairo fell asleep, he could escape this inquiry and the look on Leorio’s face that made whoever he was speaking to feel as if they were somehow at fault, when in reality, Leorio was only getting worked up. 

“Okay,” said Leorio, “so, back to when you saw Kurapika. How exactly were you able to see him out there collecting samples?”

“I was there.”

“And he brought you back to the station with him?”

“No. He ran away. I couldn’t follow him.”

“How did you get into the station?”

“I opened the door.”

“How?”

“I know how to open it.”

“ _ How _ ?”

Pairo shrugged and scooted back in his seat. “I saw how to open it. I knew.”

Leorio didn’t miss Pairo’s unease and scrambled a moment to rework his line of questioning into something a bit more specific than a stream of increasingly incredulous  _ how _ ’s. Before he succeeded, another voice spoke up from the entryway leading to the patient rooms.

“He knows,” echoed Kurapika flatly. “He knows things Pairo had no way of knowing. He compared a flower out here to a bell-shaped hat style from a town near Lindon Airport. It was trendy in York Shin three years ago. Pairo would never have known about it, but I knew, since I did security work for the owner of a factory that made them.” 

“Oh,” said Leorio. As always, he tried hard not to stare at Pairo after this revelation.

“I believe that’s how he’s been able to navigate the station,” said Kurapika. He came over and took a seat next to Leorio at the desk. Leorio pulled back his tea-soaked sleeve and hid it in his lap. “I never taught him how to get around. I never taught Dr. Costu’s brother. They just know already. You see it more when you separate yourself from them, when they’re looking for you, how much knowledge they actually have of this place.”

Kurapika’s dull tone and the drawn look on his face seemed to accuse Leorio of something, although he spoke with no emotion whatsoever.

“Sorry,” said Leorio, “if we woke you….”

“It’s all right,” said Kurapika. “I woke up and heard you asking about an explosion, so, I decided I should maybe get up and come over to explain. I forgot you didn’t know.”

Leorio bristled. “How could you forge—ugh, nevermind,” he grumbled, thinking better of what he was going to say. “I guess you’ve had a lot going on.”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause as Kurapika stared sleepily down at the table, forgetting for a moment where he was. Leorio reached over and nudged him on the shoulder.

“So?” he asked. “What happened? And what were you doing there?”

“It was...well,” said Kurapika. “I was on the roof. There was a flash, a loud noise, and then the air was full of…everything.”

In that moment, Leorio’s spirit left body frozen in place and flew off somewhere it could scream in horrified exasperation and never, ever stop. He tried to swallow, but the dam of congestion he’d been fighting with the tea clogged the back of his throat. Focusing on it too hard, he almost forgot to breathe and jolted to a start a second later with a gasp. It was as if he’d died momentarily and been resuscitated with a kick in the stomach. His mouth moved uselessly around no words. The gravity of what’d happened was still crashing into him. Kurapika waited for him to recover without speaking or looking up.

“That would’ve killed you,” said Leorio weakly. “You’d have been dead if….”

“Yes,” said Kurapika, quick and dismissive.

“I mean, I was complaining before that you almost died, but you,  _ you almost died _ .”

“Yes.”

“Out here.”

“...Yeah.”

Though he wasn’t looking at Leorio, Kurapika shied at the crack in Leorio’s voice. Leorio didn’t let him get far. He pulled Kurapika back by the shoulders and turned him around before embracing him tightly and holding him against his chest. Though not outright sobbing as he’d famously done in front of the entire Hunter Association when Gon had recovered, tears filled his eyes. When he shut them and squeezed Kurapika tighter, the tears fell, streaming down his face and dripping onto Kurapika’s hair and the back of his neck. 

“I’m sorry,” said Leorio, not loosening his hold in the slightest. Kurapika, who’d stiffened the moment he’d felt Leorio grab his shoulders, relaxed enough to reach up and pat a small portion of Leorio’s arm. He encountered the tea-soaked sleeve and made a small sound of disgust before patting Leorio’s side awkwardly instead.

“Leorio,” he began, but couldn’t think of anything else. He gave up and leaned into the embrace, shutting his eyes, knowing it was better to wait and not trivialize the moment with blithe comments about how what had happened wasn’t something Leorio need to feel sorry about, that everything had worked out fine and there was nothing to be upset over so long after the fact. The truth was, everything wasn’t fine. The two of them were isolated in the middle of the Solaris Basin with the lake seeping in through the floor and a madman locked up in the control room, cutting off people’s hands and fingers to scribble messages on the floor.

“Let me go; you’re too warm,” said Kurapika at last. A few minutes had passed, during which Leorio’s hold had tightened and relaxed multiple times. He seemed to have mostly calmed down now. Kurapika wasn’t comfortable with the angle he was being pulled in, or the protracted close contact. If Leorio was feeling better, he wanted Leorio to let him go. After Kurapika’s comment on how warm it was, Leorio did, without arguing. He sat back, slumped in his chair, while Kurapika pulled away and busily straightened out his twisted shirt.

“I’m going back to bed,” said Kurapika with a note of apology in his voice. He murmured something to Pairo next, who snatched up both mugs of tea, forgetting he’d barely finished his own. It spilled over the desk and into Leorio’s lap, startling him out of his stupor with a surprised gasp and half-pronounced swear. 

“Sorry!” said Pairo, scurrying to set down the mug and come over. Leorio waved him off, saying it was okay. He’d clean everything up himself. Pairo should go with Kurapika back to bed. Leorio wasn’t tired yet, anyway.

“Try not to stay up all night,” said Kurapika. He paused and rested his hand on the doorframe of the patient room and looked back down the hall to Leorio. “Don’t, uh, mull too much, okay? You really ought to be sleeping more. Relax.”

“I know,” said Leorio. He had a rag in one hand and the empty mugs he’d just stepped away to pour out in the other. “I’ll head back to bed after I’m done here. After I find some dry clothes. Don’t worry.”

Kurapika nodded and disappeared into the patient room, but left the door partly ajar behind him. Leorio listened to him and Pairo getting back into bed, the stiff, institution-style sheets and blankets loud enough to hear all the way down the hall. He felt a shiver as he looked down at the puddles of spilled tea on the floor and counter, imagining the larger, possibly growing puddle downstairs beside the coolers. Dr. Costu’s remains were going to spoil once Leorio and Kurapika left the station, but Leorio couldn’t justify the cost of dragging the cold, cumbersome body along with them as they fled.

On cue, a door opened outside in the hallway. Familiar footsteps picked up, and in spite of himself, the hair on Leorio’s arms stood on end. He groaned and went to the infirmary door to have a look. Segundino was a fair distance away, walking in a daze. There was a mix of dry and fresh blood on his hands, but he’d already healed beneath it. He’d must’ve mindlessly clawed his way through the sealed-off door to the basement with no-one to remind him to turn and go back down. Leorio checked Segundino’s feet. They appeared dry.

“Downstairs,” barked Leorio before Segundino even spotted him. Segundino froze, processed the information, and turned around without so much as a murmur of thanks. Leorio sighed and went back to the reception room to finish clearing up.

Kurapika had told him not to stay up all night. Leorio was going to have to let him down as went to recheck the infirmary storerooms for anything white, powdery, and unmistakably bitter. Then, he might need to do some walking to clear his head. It was better than lying around in bed waiting for sleep that wouldn't come. It was precious time alone to get a head-start before confronting Kurapika in the morning about what exactly he’d brought to the station behind everyone’s backs and perhaps against his own better judgement.

With a tired sigh, Leorio set the mugs in the breakroom sink as quietly as possible. He entered a state of Zetsu, just in case, and began his search.

_(He wasn’t alone.)_


	20. Rest

Still no word from Mizaistom. 

Leorio grumbled about it, but Kurapika reminded him sometimes it took days to hear anything back. Cranky from lack of sleep, Leorio snapped it’d only taken so long previously because Kurapika himself had been so unpredictable. Mizaistom couldn’t keep up with the seemingly random intervals at which Kurapika deigned to contact him. With Leorio around things should’ve been different. With Leorio around, there was no excuse. 

“I’ll give it three days,” said Leorio, glaring at the unmoving image on the computer screen. He spoke sharply, as if he thought the computer might hear him, change its mind, and connect him to Mizaistom by some miracle. “Three additional days. A good business week in total. After that, I’m logging into the Hunter Website and calling someone else.”

“Who?” asked Kurapika. Leorio clicked around to make sure the screen wasn’t frozen as he shrugged.

“Most likely? Killua. He knows how to go on the run.”

“To go on the run?” echoed Kurapika in disbelief.

Leorio minimized a window and brought it back, not hiding his disappointment when it worked. “Once I log in to Q or the Hunter Website, I’ll be operating under the assumption that information on my current location is compromised. My disappearance might’ve gotten some attention. It won’t take an immense leap of logic to connect the dots and realize you might be out here with me and why, so, we’ll need someone to come get us who knows how to run, how to keep a low profile, all that. We can’t rely on your old underworld connections for this, but maybe Killua has his own network.”

“Your location won’t be the only thing compromised,” noted Kurapika. “Mizaistom also won’t be able to help us anymore. So, where could we possibly go? Where could Killua possibly take us if even the Hunter Association can’t hide us anymore?”

“He can take us anywhere, once we drop off Morro. If Killua can shake off his own family, he can lose anyone.”

“Do you even know where or how to find Killua at a moment’s notice?”

“Of course I do. The minute you told me about your plan to come out here to the Solaris Basin, I began taking independent measures, which involved contacting Killua. I convinced him to visit me, which was a lot of work since I couldn’t tell him outright what was so pressing he needed to drop everything and make a trip to Swaldani City. Then, once we were together in person, I told him everything.”

“You weren’t supposed to tell anyone.”

“It was Killua. Killua isn’t just anyone.”

“Does Gon know, too?”

“I didn’t tell Gon personally, but, I never told Killua he couldn’t tell Gon, so….”

“I thought Mizai made you sign an agreement not to disclose anything—”

“And I understood how that made him feel better, yes, so, I signed it,” agreed Leorio quickly. “You’re right. He’s absolutely welcomed to sue me about it when we return to civilization. I don’t care.”

Kurapika took a seat and ran his hands through his hair. His bangs parted unevenly as they fell, leaving a seldom-seen sliver of forehead exposed, the furrows across it unmistakable and deep. When he shook his head, his hair fell back into place, and he was normal again, younger, merely thoughtful and less agitated.

“I understand you keeping all this about Killua from Mizai, since Mizai wouldn’t have agreed,” said Kurapika. “But, why didn’t you clue me in earlier? Why am I hearing it only now?”

“Why didn’t I tell you before you left?” asked Leorio with a rueful smile. He couldn’t have told Kurapika after, what with so many miles of miscommunication and Mizaistom Nana between them. “That’s because you told me not to worry, and I gave you the benefit of the doubt. More or less. I wanted to believe that you and Mizai knew what you were doing, and that I was just assuming the worst. You made sure to tell me over and over again that everything would be okay, as if I needed to hear that more than you did, which made me feel guilty, because it felt like your biggest concern was me getting in your way. I didn’t want you see me overreact and regret getting me involved, so, I told myself to shut up and trust you and hope for the best.”

“But you still panicked and overreacted behind my back, where I wouldn’t feel bad about it.”

“In hindsight, it wasn’t an overreaction. Let’s be fair here.”

“You undermined Mizai’s plans.”

“Again, to be fair, I don’t think I was really going behind Mizai’s back all that much. I’m not delusional enough to think I can pull the wool over that guy’s eyes. He might not have had any proof, but I could tell he knew I was up to something. It’s probably why he took so long getting your medical report to me until after you were more or less recovered. He didn’t want me to do anything rash. He was right, too. If I’d heard that report the day you sent it, I’d have been here the following week. Only when Mizai thought he could use my eagerness to rush out here did he finally pull me in.”

Kurapika rolled his eyes at Leorio. “You’re still going to blame Mizai?” he asked. “Like he personally and deliberately contributed towards everything wrong that’s happened out here so far?”

“I blame Mizai—”

“ _Childish_.”

“—as much as I blame myself. So, yes. Yeah. It’s his fault, too.”

Leorio took his hands off the keyboard and scooted his seat back before burying his face in his crossed arms on the desk. Kurapika had known Leorio was tired, but he was stunned to see Leorio so openly express it. He kept quiet as Leorio rolled his head left and right, trying to mitigate the pain of a growing headache. 

“Well, anyway, when you see what a hard time I’ve been giving Mizai, well…you can imagine,” said Leorio into the fabric of his sleeves. He broke into a loud yawn that filled the room. After tapping his forehead on the cool surface of the desk a few times, he sat up partway. Again, he made zero effort to hide how bleary-eyed and exhausted he was. His reading glasses, which had been partly obscuring the circles under his eyes, had slipped down his nose, destroying any trace of an illusion that he’d slept so much as a wink the night before.

“We’re done in here, with this,” he said softly into the air above the desk. He nodded towards the computer. 

“Shouldn’t you rest?” asked Kurapika. “You look….” He swallowed his words. He couldn’t describe how Leorio looked. It was something greater than physical exhaustion and a lack of sleep. Simply saying Leorio looked tired, which was what Kurapika had been about to tell him, didn’t begin to cover the absolute, soul-destroying weariness etched on Leorio’s face. It wasn't as if he'd missed a night of sleep; it was as if he'd missed years.

Kurapika hadn’t stayed up waiting for Leorio the night before, but he was positive Leorio had never come back to bed. When Kurapika had gotten up the next morning, he’d found Leorio already awake and standing in the shower. He’d been so still and silent that Kurapika had begun to wonder if he’d fallen asleep standing there. He didn’t hear when Kurapika called out to him from the doorway. Kurapika had to raise his voice to a shout before finally getting a reaction. When Leorio looked towards him over the partition, his eyes were too distant, as if he didn’t know who or what he was looking at. Kurapika told him to hurry up, to stop wasting water, to come out and have coffee. When Leorio emerged a few minutes later, everything had clicked back into place, and he was himself, albeit sluggish and clearly sleep-deprived.

“There’s something else we have to do,” said Leorio. Kurapika tilted his head. “You need to show me every room you’ve used as your quarters since you arrived at the station.”

Kurapika sat up at this, confused. “What? Why?” he asked.

“I need to check them,” said Leorio. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, stifling another yawn into his elbow. “You know, for whatever it was you gave Pairo. You can’t have something like that here. It’s my job to confiscate it.”

Kurapika went a shade paler.

“Ah. You didn’t overhear it last night, then,” observed Leorio. “Oh well. Don’t bother trying to tell me you got rid of everything. I’m not going to be satisfied until I see for myself. So, let’s go.”

With a groan, Leorio got up from his chair. He tapped Kurapika on the shoulder as he passed him, ordering him with a glance to get up and come along. Kurapika swallowed and stood. Reluctantly, he caught up and led the way.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Though so tired he couldn’t go five minutes without yawning, Leorio was merciless in searching each and every room Kurapika had ever used. Kurapika didn’t say a word. He stopped in front of doors and gestured towards them, letting Leorio handle the rest. Pairo, timid due to Kurapika’s bad mood but trying to be helpful and move things along, confirmed the rooms Kurapika indicated with a nod. After this, Leorio would go inside. He’d order Kurapika to stay back, to enter a state of Zetsu and stand in the doorway with his hands clasped on his head. Leorio would then break down the entire room looking for hiding places or traces of powdery residue. He didn’t bother to put anything back when he was done. 

The scant evidence Leorio did find turned out to be in Kurapika’s original assigned room. This room was the largest, and the last to be checked. Kurapika’s belongings were still there, his Kurta garb and the medical kit he’d compiled on Leorio’s advice. They sat untouched in a chest Leorio wouldn’t let Kurapika get near. Instead, he had Kurapika recite the combination from the doorway while he unlocked it himself.

“Hm,” grunted Leorio as he held open the suspiciously small, well-concealed compartment at the back of the medical kit where Kurapika had stored the envelopes of sleeping powder. Though none of the packets had leaked, it wasn’t hard to deduce what the hidden compartment had been meant for. Leorio made a point to set the medical kit on the length of counter furthest away from the door and Kurapika, before moving on to inspect the rest of the room.

Kurapika hadn’t been exceptionally diligent about wiping the counters in his bathroom after his first day at the station. Leorio found the inevitable traces of powdery residue there, both along the junction of the wall and the counter, as well as in the corner of the mirror furthest from the sink. He called Pairo over to bring him his swabs and vials. In the main room, Kurapika let out a deep breath. It wasn’t exactly a sigh, but more a tired acknowledgment and acceptance of something he’d anticipated but had hoped wouldn’t come to pass if he were lucky.

“There really is nothing left,” said Kurapika when Leorio re-entered the main living space. Leorio set the bag of samples beside the medical kit without looking over. It was the first time Kurapika had spoken up to defend himself all afternoon. Now that Leorio had checked every inch of every room, he couldn’t claim Kurapika was lying. “I threw most of it out when I got here.”

Leorio gritted his teeth. “You shouldn’t have brought something like that to a place like this in the first place. You knew it was a bad idea. I know you knew, because you were wondering why Costu wouldn’t prescribe sleeping aides to the other Hunter assigned here. I gave you a clear and medically sound reason as to why. You ignored it. You did whatever you wanted to, anyway.”

“It was insurance. I didn’t actually intend to—”

“Shut up,” snapped Leorio. His hard gaze silenced Kurapika like a slap. “At some point you did. At some point you were fully intending to bring along your own, personal supply of one of the most restricted substances in this entire station, just in case Costu told you no. And not only that, you brought along something several times more potent than anything Costu would’ve been keeping your hands off of. It was overkill. It was stupid. You’re an idiot, and you took a stupid risk.”

“It made me feel better knowing it was there,” said Kurapika. He dropped his hands from his head, and Leorio didn’t order him to put them back. The search was over, the evidence conclusive. All that was left was to fight over it.

“When I finally got here, when I really knew what it was like out here, it made sense to me why I shouldn’t have something like that,” explained Kurapika. Leorio scoffed. Kurapika ignored him as he swiveled his sore stiffened wrists in circles and massaged the feeling back into his fingers. “The very first thing I did was get rid of most of it. The rest I was going to get rid of right after, but, then, the explosion happened.” 

“Seeing how we didn’t receive any calls about you being searched and disciplined for bringing illegal substances into the station, I assume your ‘getting rid of it’ didn’t involve taking responsibility for your actions and handing everything over at once to the station’s medical officer, who would’ve had the means and the knowledge to dispose of something like that for you properly.”

“No.”

“Shocking.”

“It’s why I was outside my first night here. It’s how I got caught in the dust cloud of the explosion. I was pouring the powder out on the roof. I was tired. It seemed like a sensible solution.”

Leorio gaped at him. “Don’t tell me you went out without any protective gear. Judging by the extent of your injuries….”

“I was just dressed like this,” said Kurapika, lifting his arms a little to indicate what he was currently wearing. Leorio buried his face in his hands, a whimper of defeat rising from the back of this throat. “After that, I was worried about going outside unprepared again, so, I just kept the rest of the medicine until I could get rid of it some other way.” 

“And when Pairo showed up, you made him take it,” Leorio concluded. When he peered up over his fingers, he eyes were dark. “Tell me, were you trying to just knock him out, or _kill_ him?”

This abrupt accusation startled Kurapika. He stammered wordlessly for a moment. “No. Absolutely not,” he choked. “I just wanted to be alone for a few minutes. He wouldn’t leave me alone. I hoped it might slow him down.”

“Did it?”

“Not at all. He wasn’t really affected.”

“Did you try any yourself?”

“No. Never.”

“Are you telling the truth?”

“Yes.”

Leorio turned to Pairo and asked again, “Is he telling the truth?” 

Pairo nodded without looking over to Kurapika for permission or reassurance. If his answer was a lie, he’d thought well enough ahead to not make it look like one. Leorio couldn’t go back in time and test Kurapika to prove it. Of course he’d test Kurapika later today, once they got back to the infirmary, since it was part of the protocol he had to follow. The result would probably show Kurapika was clean, though. Leorio wasn’t so paranoid as to believe Kurapika was sleeping better than he these past few days by artificial means.

“Take these to my office,” said Leorio to Pairo, handing him the evidence he’d collected and a key. “Put everything in the desk drawer and lock it, okay? Kurapika and I aren’t leaving this room. He and I need to talk.”

Pairo had never been fast, but he added a new, deliberate slowness to his steps as he took the medical kit and samples from Leorio and headed for the door. He paused and looked over to Kurapika, but Kurapika motioned for him to go ahead. A moment later, Pairo was gone.

Leorio relaxed and sat down on the bed. He leaned back until his shoulders were touching the wall. Then, he shut his eyes. Within seconds, it looked as if he’d fallen uncomfortably asleep. Kurapika stared at him.

“Is this us talking, Leorio?” asked Kurapika. He was thankful Leorio wasn’t yelling at him, but he wasn’t sure what to do if Leorio took a nap.

“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” said Leorio, keeping his eyes shut. He covered them with his hands for good measure, slipping the tips of his fingers under his reading glasses and pressing down. “When you left, you told me everything was fine. You told me not to worry. Meanwhile, you were so worried yourself that you brought along a highly addictive and dangerous sleep aid you purchased on the black market, just in case the effect of the basin on your mind was too strong and wouldn’t let you rest.”

“Yes.”

“Once you arrived, you realized how dangerous it was to have in your active possession something you could develop such a quick and profound dependency on, and so, in a moment of lucidity, you got rid of the temptation. This involved a trip to the roof, which usually wouldn’t have been too dangerous, except there was an explosion and you were caught outside. Afterwards, you decided not to tell me or Mizai the full details. I’m not sure why not. Either you wanted to avoid a major investigation into the explosion that might inadvertently reveal your identity and whereabouts, or…you didn’t want to explain what you were doing outside because you knew I’d asphyxiate screaming.”

“You were already going to be upset about Emperor Time.”

“I was.”

“I could’ve been on the roof for anything.”

“But, I would’ve made you tell me exactly what the hell it was you thought you were doing.”

“I know.”

Fabric rustled and the bed creaked as Kurapika sat beside Leorio, patting Leorio’s knee first to avoid startling him. Leorio kept his eyes covered with his palms, blocking the light of the room he’d switched to its the brightest setting to conduct his search. Kurapika scooted backwards until he was leaning against the wall, too, though his feet dangled instead of resting on the floor like Leorio’s. He let out a small puff of a sigh and clasped his hands over his stomach, staring away in thought. Judging by Leorio’s breathing, Leorio was falling asleep again.

“Are you alright?” asked Kurapika. 

“Tired.”

“Take a nap, you idiot.”

“I can’t leave you guys alone for two seconds.”

“I won’t leave this room.”

Leorio sighed and opened his eyes a crack. “Is Pairo back yet?”

“I think he’s taking his time. You looked mad when you sent him out.”

“I was mad. I am mad. Not at him. Just in general. I’m fucking pissed.”

“That’s more than evident.”

“Why wouldn’t I be mad?” asked Leorio with a groan. “All these risks, all these dangers; they’re all so idiotic. So many stupid ways to die. I don’t want to lose another friend. Not like this. Not ever. But, especially not like this.”

Kurapika shrugged. “Who knows? In your case, it might not be so bad after all.”

“What? What the hell?”

“You turned losing your friend who was sick into motivation to become a world-class doctor.”

“Don’t you dare fucking suggest I can benefit from losing friends periodically in order to regain sight of my priorities,” said Leorio, disgusted and appalled. He lifted his hands off his face, removing his glasses along with them. “You’re probably going to suggest it wouldn’t be that big a deal to lose you next, right? Always trying to prepare me for the worse case scenario which you consider to be inevitable.” The shift in Leorio’s weight caused him to slip a little further down on accident, and he sucked in a swift “shit” when his head hit the wall. “Ow. Damn. Well, anyway, no dice. I refuse to accept it. Fuck you.”

Leorio tossed his glasses towards the head of the bed to get them out of his way. “Where’s Pairo?” he grumbled distractedly, frowning at the door. “It’s taking too long.”

“I think he’s in the hallway. He probably doesn’t want to get in the way if we’re fighting.”

Leorio sighed. “I’ll go tell him to stop,” he said, shifting to rise. Kurapika placed a hand on his shoulder to keep him down. When Leorio looked over, Kurapika shook his head at him. Leorio, tired beyond reckoning, gave up without a fight.

“Fine. I’ll just rest my eyes,” he relented. “Don’t you dare let me go over twenty minutes.”

“I won’t.”

“You can let Pairo in, too. I don’t care.”

“I don’t want him in here.”

Something caught in Leorio’s throat, and he turned away to cough. When he rolled back over, he slipped an arm under his head and shut his eyes. Kurapika shifted over to give him a little more room. Before long, Leorio had fallen fast asleep. Kurapika stifled a yawn watching him, tempted to doze himself.

A soft unsticking sound followed by a thin creak gave Pairo away as he nudged the door open and peered into the room. The silence surprised him, and he nearly yanked the door shut, except curiosity overcame him. He saw Kurapika and Leorio together, Leorio sleeping and Kurapika sitting up with his arms crossed. Though he’d heard the door, Kurapika hadn’t looked over. His eyes were fixed on Leorio, too low to make out any expression or change that might’ve given away his thoughts. 

Pairo, relieved but also embarrassed, pulled the door back carefully and shut it again.


	21. Precautions

Kurapika lied and didn’t wake Leorio for over two hours. Only the numbness in Leorio’s legs clued him in to the fact he’d slept far longer than he’d asked. Upon waking, the first thing he said was, “Dammit,” and the second, “Kurapika.”

In hindsight, Leorio hadn’t made it clear he was planning to investigate the explosion that same day, so, of course Kurapika had let him waste the bulk of the afternoon unconscious in a terrible sleeping position. The only good news was they hadn’t missed any calls from Mizaistom. Pairo had been watching the computer for them to make sure, leaving Leorio dumbfounded as he tried to imagine how Mizaistom would’ve reacted to a child he didn’t know answering the video call and telling him in careful, stilted sentences that Leorio was taking a nap upstairs in the middle of the day with Kurapika. 

For the rest of the evening, Leorio tried to be productive. He sat hunched over the personal log book left by the previous Hunter for nearly two hours, his sour expression and general air of brooding inviting zero interruptions. Though it was unclear if it were on Kurapika’s behest or to satisfy his own curiosity, Pairo would pop his head around the frame of the office’s open door to check on him. He never announced himself or said a word, just looked over and disappeared back into the reception area where Kurapika was leafing through station blueprints, trying to figure out which systems might go down first if the lower levels flooded. Leorio would occasionally pause his reading to listen for the sounds of pages turning and snatches of conversation. If things got too quiet, he’d send out his En under the pretense of checking on the seals surrounding the control room.

The next day, after another restless night spent waiting out his insomnia, Leorio got back on track. While still chewing the last of his fortified breakfast bar, he stood and ordered Kurapika to come along with him to the curved perimeter hallway. He needed Kurapika to help him locate the explosion site from the window.

“How far away is it?” asked Leorio after Kurapika pointed out The Slice and then down towards the wide, broken, semi-crater blown into the cliffside. The clearing was already verdant with opportunistic new growth, making it challenging to locate. The distinctive waterfall below was nearly invisible, since the surface of the lake didn’t ripple or whiten where it fell. With binoculars, it was clear to see why. The lake in that corner was bubbling and dark, like a viscous, simmering syrup. 

“It takes a few hours to get there,” said Kurapika. “Could be longer. I took a more direct route through the trees in parts instead of using the path. The way I went, going up the Slice and then back down, is probably the fastest way. The path circumventing the ridge will take you far out of the way before it comes back around to the lake.”

Leorio nodded and rubbed his bottom lip with the hand holding his chin. In his other hand, he held a map and followed Kurapika’s words with his eyes over the page.

“You aren’t really planning to actually go there, are you?” asked Kurapika. “Today?”

“Mh-hm,” said Leorio. Kurapika’s shoulders slumped. The binoculars hanging from his wrist swung out, hitting his leg as he turned away.

“I’ll go prepare our suits, then,” he said. He took a step, but Leorio reached out and stopped him.

“You aren’t coming along,” said Leorio. “It’s a weird time, but Mizai might call while I’m gone. We don’t know what’s keeping him. Plus, someone needs to stay with Morro. If we both go, we might find ourselves locked out or worse. We can’t trust him here alone.”

Kurapika hesitated, but decided not to share his first and fairly bloodied thought on the subject of how “alone” Dr. Morro was or wasn’t. “Okay,” he conceded. “But, are you sure you want to head out there by yourself? Aren’t we supposed to never go anywhere by ourselves?”

“I won’t be long.”

Pairo and Kurapika managed to cross their arms at exactly the same moment without trying. Kurapika frowned at Pairo, annoyed, and dropped his own arms to his sides immediately. With a quick motion for Pairo to stay behind, he led Leorio a short distance down the hall.

“I told you already, but I just want to check that you understand,” said Kurapika. “When I was out there, something tried to…come after me. When I got back, Dr. Costu had already killed himself. Soon after that, Pairo showed up. Considering that, are you sure you want to investigate the explosion site... _at all_? There’s no proof that my being down there started all this, but we can’t say it didn’t. There are too many factors to make a definite decision on what’s safe. Is this a necessary risk?”

Leorio nodded, indicating he believed it was. “Your emotional state before was compromised. You ruined your samples and got zero results. We’ll need more for better, more definitive testing.” 

Though it was clear in Leorio’s voice that he wasn’t trying to chastise him, Kurapika hung his head in shame all the same. His jaw tightened as he bit back the small surge of guilt and embarrassment accompanying the memory of the unprofessional tantrum he’d thrown towards Pairo early on after struggling for days to ignore him and work as if he weren’t there. Though Leorio wouldn’t have blamed him for it, Kurapika hadn’t shared the full details of what’d happened. Kurapika was too ashamed to admit it, and also, Leorio knowing the full story wouldn’t have changed the fact that Kurapika had long since lost his few, hard-earned samples along with his temper. 

Leorio rested a hand on Kurapika’s shoulder, consoling him. When he spoke again, his voice was closer then before.  

“The Hunter Association has to know if people are bombing their property,” said Leorio. “If the explosion was man-made, this could become an international incident. The station itself might be a target. Since I’m supposed to make a final report on the operational status of the station and its staff, I could face repercussions if I don’t include this.”

“Write down what I told you about the explosion, and leave it at that. Dr. Morro can corroborate.”

Leorio sighed and gripped Kurapika’s shoulder. “Your erratic behavior and failure to mention the explosion are suspect,” he said. “Morro’s even worse, since he didn’t report it, either. Neither did Costu. None of you did.” 

Kurapika tried to interject, but Leorio’s mouth tightened into a narrow line, and he shook his head slower, quieting Kurapika as he stared him down with sudden severeness. 

“Mizai and I would’ve known about the explosion right away if someone had reported it,” said Leorio. “Everyone would’ve known. Although it would’ve blown your cover in less than a day, the Hunter Association staff in Snaut Province would’ve responded, maybe even sent a medical team and gotten you out, since unlike you reporting to Mizai directly because you’re on a special mission, Morro and Costu report to the Association’s regional headquarters. It wouldn’t have been the protocol to just leave you here to tough it out with only Costu to look after you. The basin’s inhospitable, not unaccessible. If it were, the medical team here would have had to be a _team_ and not just one guy without even a robot to help him. But, since just one guy without a even robot is considered an acceptable standard to contend with minor exposure, it was deemed enough to simply put the station on lockdown until I arrived instead of sending an interim doctor.”

Kurapika furrowed his brow. “When were we on lockdown?”

“The entire time before I got here. In order to reduce the likelihood of a medical emergency, non-essential work and outside station activities were suspended.”

“Oh.”

“If you’d actually spoken to Mizai, he would’ve explained the situation. Costu’s death brought up a lot of debate about the station and how it’s being run, which means there’s a lot more to my mission than investigating Costu’s death. Morro knows that. I believe it’s why he’s been so hostile to my presence here. He suspected you, as well. He’s not just unwelcoming towards strangers; he’s afraid of what the arrival of Hunters means for the station and how it’ll operate in the future.”

“I know he’s concerned about what will happen to him, but….”

“You don’t know the full scope yet. Suspiciously, Costu and Morro both kept the full details about your condition out of their reports. They said you were exposed on the way over while navigating the overgrown paths, coincidentally wording it in a way not dissimilar to how you reported vaguely that you were exposed after you arrived. However, your timeline didn’t match Costu and Morro’s. They said they found you outside and brought you in. You said you arrived to the station on your own. It’s part of my mission to find out why all of you lied—although, in your case, I hope I’m right, and it was just because of...well, personal reasons.” 

Kurapika shifted away, embarrassed, but Leorio pulled him back with the hand on his shoulder and waited until Kurapika was looking him in the eye again.

“Just so you know, I’m going to say you didn’t realize the full incident wasn’t reported by Costu or Morro, and that it was left out of your medical report because you were too traumatized with having nearly died and everything to mention it. Your erratic behavior after was derived from an increasing sense of paranoia as a result of your isolation in the wake of an egregious breakdown in communication between station personnel.”

“Thanks,” said Kurapika. Leorio ignored the sarcasm.

“That said,” continued Leorio, “if it turns out the regional headquarters actually knew of the explosion but didn’t respond or pass the information on, if it’s true they maybe altered Morro and Costu’s reports for whatever reason, then there’s a much bigger problem here. Something along these lines has been suspected in Swaldani City ever since the last Hunter assigned to the basin chose to run away without notifying a single person. That’s why I’m not just here to figure out what happened to Costu. My job is to report to Mizaistom in detail what the hell is happening overall. It means I’m going to need to collect evidence from the explosion site myself.”

“But after what I’ve told you, is it a necessary risk?” insisted Kurapika. “Considering the repercussions you could face right now rather than some nebulous, ‘what-if’ political intrigue in the future?” 

Leorio pursed his lips, unwilling to answer. The hand slipped from Kurapika’s shoulder as he retreated, but Kurapika leaned in to maintain the closeness between them and lowered his voice. If Kurapika couldn’t wriggle out of an uncomfortable conversation, neither could Leorio. “Leorio,” he chided, calling him back. Leorio stopped. “Do you think it’s safe? Did you even sleep, or—”

“I’m fine,” said Leorio. He looked Kurapika firmly in the eye and assured him, “I won’t be long.”

Kurapika pulled away, muttering something harsh in Pairo’s direction over his shoulder that he knew Leorio wouldn’t understand but would infer, correctly, was about him. Leorio proceeded to the nearest equipment room to outfit himself for his excursion. After clenching his fists and glaring out the window at the explosion site, Kurapika joined him. With knitted brow and abrupt movements, he helped Leorio secure his gear, checking for leaks and other imperfections with meticulous care. He may not have agreed with Leorio’s decision to go outside, but he wasn’t going to let him leave with a subpar level of protection. 

“Don’t linger out there,” said Kurapika when they were finished. His anger had abated in the half hour it’d taken to get Leorio ready. He’d never been able to balance frustration and attention to detail, and for Leorio’s sake had put the anger aside. All that was left was a rumbling knot of anxiety in his stomach. He pushed it down with reminders than Leorio was a highly capable Hunter who could handle himself. Unlike Kurapika, Leorio had actually prepared for a mission with specific parameters, and he couldn’t do his job while staying safe inside the station, hoping blindly that there wouldn’t be any complications later.

“Keep an eye out for any changes, anything whatsoever,” warned Kurapika. “Remember what I told you about the voice, the stream. If anything like that happens to you, don’t get distracted by it. If you aren’t back in five hours, I’m going out to get you. Pairo will help me. I’ll tell him what to do when I’m putting on the gear. He might already know.”

“I’ll try to be back in sooner than five hours,” said Leorio. “Don’t worry. I can cover a lot of ground on my feet.”

Kurapika was doubtful, but pat Leorio on the back with a resolute sigh and let him leave the prep room. He didn’t follow Leorio to the door or stare after him from the window where they’d been standing earlier. Acting in such a pathetic manner would’ve been going a little too far, seeming a little too desperate, like he didn’t believe Leorio could do his job. So, he made Pairo watch instead, and told him to report back once Leorio was out of sight.

“Everything seems okay,” said Pairo as he entered the office where Kurapika was transcribing data and research notes. He’d fallen behind over the past few days, though he hadn’t set himself a concrete deadline to start with. All the work needed to do was keep him busy.

“Remind me in an hour to check if he’s reached The Slice,” said Kurapika. Pairo noted the command dutifully, checking the nearest clock to see what time it was. He set the binoculars on the desk and sat down.

“I think he’ll be okay,” said Pairo following a long pause. Kurapika hesitated typing. He offered a vague nod at the screen and dove back into his work. “You can relax,” said Pairo soon after.

“I’m relaxed,” said Kurapika as he scrolled and clicked to format the indentation of a previous line. “I’m not worried.”

“Why didn’t you go, too? You know it’s dangerous.”

“I don’t need to. Mizai might call back. We can’t leave Dr. Morro alone.”

“Morro? The crazy man in the computer room?” asked Pairo. He’d far too easily adopted Leorio’s derisive habit of never using the man’s professional title, especially after seeing the bloody message and dismembered hand on the ground. “We aren’t even watching him now.”

“I’m checking on him periodically with the En pulses Leorio showed me yesterday.”

Pairo’s brows pinched together. After a moment, he ventured to ask something that’d been on his mind for a while. “What’s En, exactly? Leorio mentions it a lot, but I don’t get it.”

“It’s a Nen technique. Our invisible power I told you about.”

“Is Leorio better at En than you?”

Kurapika scoffed at the notion on principle, although it was true. “He’s got different skills from me,” he said a second later with a softer sigh. “I create tools. He sends energy over a distance. It’s not the same.”

“You create tools? You mean the chains?”

Pairo was staring at Kurapika’s hand, which was typically devoid of chains while he typed. “Why are you suddenly so curious about them?” asked Kurapika. “You didn’t care about it before.”

“I was always curious,” said Pairo with a nervous smile, his eyes flitting back up to Kurapika’s face, “but I didn’t ask. I didn’t think you would tell me.”

“Huh. And why would I tell you now?”

“You still might not,” admitted Pairo. “But, if you don’t, I can ask Leorio. He’ll tell me instead.”

“Right,” agreed Kurapika. “You’re right. He would. Plus, he knows pretty much everything else you could ask about me that you wouldn’t already know.”

“Does he know what you need chains for?”

“He does.”

“What do you need them for?”

“Ask Leorio.”

“ _Kurapika_.”

“I need them to fight.”

“And that’s all?”

“What do you mean ‘and that’s all’?”

“Do you only use your invisible power to fight people?” 

“Only.”

“It’s not like Leorio, then.”

Kurapika took his hands off the keyboard and swiveled his chair to face Pairo.

“It’s not like Leorio, no,” said Kurapika, “but Leorio isn’t like most people to begin with. It’s rare to find Hunters like him who create multiple abilities to help others more than himself. Sometimes Nen-users, especially non-Hunters, develop abilities that work symbiotically, but it’s for the benefit of themselves or their team, not for any stranger who might need them.”

“Don’t Hunters help people?”

“We do. In a way. But not like how Leorio does. A lot of the time we have to fight to help.”

“Leorio can’t fight?”

Kurapika bit his lip. “He…can,” he said after a pause. “He fights less than he used to, but he’s prepared to fight, if he has to.”

“Is he any good at fighting?”

“That depends what you think counts as good.” Kurapika relaxed and folded his hands in front of him, resting his elbows on the armrests. As he spoke, a small smile crept up at the corner of his mouth. Pairo relaxed as well, pleased to see Kurapika sitting easier. 

“He isn’t afraid of a fight,” said Kurapika. “When it comes to the necessary physical skill and the confidence to stand his ground and engage when matters turn to violence, he’s ‘good’. Perhaps due to his upbringing, he seems to accept physical confrontation as a fact of life. He’s not trying to test himself or prove anything about his strength. I’ve never seen him instigate a fight without a good reason, at least not in years. Instead, whenever I’ve seen him fight, he’s usually just trying to gain control over a spiraling situation. In the past he wasn’t good at discerning which fights were worth it or not, and he lacked a lot of restraint, but now, he’s more conscious about going too far, raising the stakes too soon. Now, though he’s always ready to fight, he never assumes he’s going to have to.”

“You’re not like that,” said Pairo, reading in Kurapika’s praise an obvious appreciation for qualities Kurapika himself lacked but admired.

“No. Not really. I’m usually just trying to hurt or kill people when I fight them,” said Kurapika. The smile was wiped away in an instant. Pairo took a breath to say something, but Kurapika didn’t give him room to speak. “I’ve protected people for a living, but my skills were developed to serve myself ahead of anyone else. My abilities were for combat. My motive was revenge. For Leorio, fighting has been a fact of life. For me, it was the purpose of my life.”

“Kurapika….”

A faint red glow had seeped into Kurapika’s irises. By the time he finished, his eyes were washed over in a wave of scarlet. When Kurapika had been a child, Pairo, the real Pairo, would always point it out, remind him to calm down so his eyes wouldn’t change so quickly without him noticing. The new Pairo across from him at the desk right now, however, bit his tongue, knowing better than to call attention to something they were both well-aware was happening.

Kurapika excused himself to the bathroom, unable to stand the strained silence. He’d almost started to forget in the short time since Leorio had arrived how it felt to be trapped with this other Pairo in the same room. In fact, he’d almost begun to see this other Pairo as, while not the true Pairo, at least something else, someone else, a manageable affliction. The weeks before Leorio’s arrival had grown hazy—an endless, erratic dream of alternating moods, with every day either made or broken by shifts in temperament Kurapika had no control over. He never could’ve left the station on his own in such a state. It’d been hard enough to pull himself out of bed and focus on transcribing data. Something had needed to break the routine from the outside, and now, Leorio hadn’t been gone for half an hour before Kurapika started sliding back into letting his rage and weariness take over.

Kurapika returned sooner than Pairo expected. Pairo tripped as he hurried to his seat, having inched towards the door while he waited, ready to go after him.

“Let’s get some suits and supplies together to leave,” said Kurapika. “We need to prepare a backup plan.”

“A backup plan?” asked Pairo. He followed Kurapika out of the room and down the hall. Kurapika stopped at a series of storerooms packed with dusty equipment.

“If something happens to Leorio, we have to be ready to leave, to get him out of here. As for the mission, Dr. Morro, Mizai—I don’t care. We leave.”

“But he said you were in trouble,” said Pairo, trailing after as Kurapika made a beeline for a shelf of masks and respirators. “He said you have to stay here until it’s over. No-one can find you.”

“I don’t care about that. I can’t let something happen to him on my account. Once we’re done gathering equipment here, we’re going to come up with a plan for how to incapacitate him. I don’t believe he’ll leave willingly, especially not without addressing Dr. Morro’s situation first. I don’t want that to slow us down.”

Pairo tried but wasn’t very helpful as Kurapika hastily gathered supplies in his arms and carried them over to a table to sort out what they needed based on whatever looked like it worked and would fit Leorio. He’d just finished helping Leorio put on a suit, so, he still had a good idea of the size everything needed to be. 

“What’s going to happen to Leorio?” asked Pairo, confused. “Why are you so worried about him?”

“Because he lost a good friend like you, Pairo. So, what if that person…what if it shows up, and Leorio can’t….” Kurapika stopped and shut his eyes, trying to keep himself from imagining the worst. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes a moment later, getting back to work. “Right now, nothing’s happened,” he said. “No-one’s shown up yet. We still have time to come up with a contingency plan. Things might change fast when he gets back. Even now, it’s getting worse. He saw something in the water downstairs, right? It’s probably going to happen soon.”

“What is going to happen?”

“Someone will show up. Something will show up. Something bad will happen.”

Pairo was quiet. Kurapika tossed a few rejected respirators into a pile and told Pairo to put them away. Pairo did so, but never lost his pensive expression. He returned even more solemn, but resolved. Once he summoned the courage, he tugged on Kurapika’s sleeve and cleared his throat.

“Excuse me?” he asked. Kurapika had forced Pairo to address him politely like a stranger for the first few weeks they’d been stuck together in the station. He’d stopped enforcing it a while ago, and with Leorio around making interacting with Pairo seem so natural, he’d nearly forgotten until now. He felt embarrassed at the reminder and paid attention to Pairo immediately, not wanting to hear him repeat himself.

“What is it?” asked Kurapika. 

“Someone has shown up already.”

Kurapika almost dropped the mask he was holding to run to the window. He’d left the binoculars in the office. He’d need those first. It might be a waste of time, though. It might just be better to put on a suit and head out directly.

“Who?” asked Kurapika. Chains materialized over his right hand. “Where?”

Pairo cowered when he saw the look on Kurapika’s face. Kurapika recognized the reaction. Too many times since Pairo had shown up, they’d gone through moments seeing each other as strangers. The version of Pairo the lake had extracted from Kurapika’s mind, though oddly familiar with aspects of Kurapika’s life he shouldn’t have known, didn’t truly know this older version of Kurapika. Too much had changed since they’d parted. Kurapika’s memories, his entire notion of who Pairo was, were limited. He’d only known a childhood best friend, a precocious boy who shared his wish to travel the world and become a Hunter. Everything that’d happened to Kurapika afterwards, Kurapika hadn’t experienced with Pairo. The person Kurapika was now, Pairo had never met. He was angrier, and more than once, he was terrifying.

“Where?” demanded Kurapika one more time. At that moment, he wasn’t seeing Pairo, the friend, in front of him. He was only seeing Pairo, the facsimile. An imperfect recreation conjured by the lake from Kurapika’s mind.

“Would you please follow me,” said Pairo, not asking, but reciting the most polite form of address he knew, as if Kurapika were a village elder. Kurapika answered impolitely with silence and a nod. He was surprised when Pairo headed towards the infirmary, rather than to a window where they could see outside. As the first hall door closed behind them, Kurapika thought about turning back, sticking to his own plan of preparing gear, but his instincts compelled him to stay with Pairo. Instinct was all he could rely on as his logical mind scrambled and went blank, faced with too many options it didn’t like, unable to choose.

“What is this?” asked Kurapika when they entered the waiting room of the infirmary. Pairo beckoned him to keep following, but Kurapika kept his distance. He watched Pairo turn down a long hall, going the opposite direction of the area they were using as a part of their living arrangements. There was a whole wing with wards, operating theaters, and even a few sealed patient rooms intended for emergency quarantines. Leorio had complained about the mess of a layout when they’d been tidying up. In an effort to prepare for every contingency, the infirmary had become a winding maze of redundant, underutilized space following the whims and after-thoughts of constantly changing staff rather than retaining any logical flow between the variety and size of rooms available. 

Pairo entered the oldest section of wards from when the station had first been built. Kurapika, who’d never entered this part of the infirmary in the daytime, was surprised to discover faraway windows angled up towards the sky. The room had to be nearly as high as the control room. It’s length and the even spacing of unused beds gave it a cathedral-like feel. Kurapika entered cautiously, not trusting the wideness of the space and the sense of exposure provided by the sudden abundance of natural light. He couldn’t imagine what this room had been used for, except as a misguided attempt at a convalescence area. Though the walls facing out to a wide vista of the mountains and the lake were solid, on second glance once could make out the thin lines of sealant where windows had been permanently shut and patched over, leaving only the upper panes exposed.

Curtains had been set up and drawn around one of the beds at the end of the ward, creating a pale block that seemed to glow in the otherwise gray room. Kurapika didn’t need to ask to know that this was where Pairo was taking him. Although someone confined to a sickbed couldn’t have been much of a threat, he kept his Nen chains conjured. 

He heard the person behind the curtain before he was halfway down the aisle. Whoever it was knew someone was coming and called out first. Kurapika didn’t understand the language well, but he caught Leorio’s name as well as the light waver of fear at the realization that the person approaching wouldn’t be Leorio. Pairo went ahead, slipping between the curtains, and the person there greeted him.

“He’s Kurapika,” said Pairo, speaking in the Hunter language to someone. Kurapika stopped short, just outside the curtains swaying in Pairo’s wake. Kurapika couldn’t see what lay beyond them. He only caught narrow glimpses of one of several identical beds in the ward.

“Who’s Kurapika?” asked the other voice. It was young, childlike. The accent was surprisingly clear and clean, though Kurapika couldn’t tell in so few words if it were a girl or a boy speaking.

“He’s Leorio’s friend. He’s my friend,” said Pairo.

“Where’s Leorio?”

“He’s outside.”

“Outside? Is he with Kurapika?”

“No. In the nature.”

“Why?”

“He’s working.”

“Oh. Why did he send Kurapika?”

“He didn’t send Kurapika. I brought Kurapika.”

“Oh.”

“Want to meet him? Kurapika?”

“Leorio told me to rest….”

“It’s only ‘hello’. You can rest.”

“Okay.”

A moment later Pairo’s head popped out from between the curtains. He switched to the Hunter language when he spoke to Kurapika, clearly trying to make the person in the sickbed feel more at ease. “Come. It’s Leorio’s…” Pairo’s expression froze in thought before he concluded, “…friend.”

It’d crossed Kurapika’s mind while standing there how it was Leorio’s visitor hadn’t been able to leave the bed. When he looked past the curtain, this was no longer a question. The body of the child in the bed had wasted away at the mercy of some illness Kurapika didn’t know. Leorio had mentioned once that that the disease his friend had died from had been curable with the proper medication, but Kurapika was positive he was looking at something terminal. Perhaps this iteration was further gone, nearer to death, the most significant and traumatizing version of the specter haunting the back of Leorio’s mind. 

Kurapika found it difficult to stare for too long. Thankfully most of the body was covered in heavy blankets. One of the knobby hands poking out from oversized sleeves was bandaged, making it look unreal, as if it belonged to a puppet and not a child.

“Hello,” said Kurapika, embarrassed because he didn’t know where to look. Despite the child’s weak, emaciated figure, they had a full head of dense, wiry hair that fell forward when they directed their gaze over, eyes unfocused and unblinking, taking Kurapika in with no expression. Kurapika looked away, focusing on the line of the child’s slightly gaping mouth instead. The whole body heaved with each breath passing through the dry, pale lips. Kurapika found himself taking deeper breaths as well, but the air behind the curtain smelled sour and stale, undercut with an unpleasant sweetness that made Kurapika quickly shut his mouth and breath slower through his nose, as if that would hold off the poisonous miasma.

“What do you want?” asked the child, not answering Kurapika’s greeting. Kurapika struggled for an answer far from the truth, which was that he’d only come here to confirmed Leorio’s visitor existed, and that was all.

“We live here,” said Pairo, jumping in for Kurapika. “So, we have to introduce Kurapika to you.” The child cast a glance in his direction so long it seemed to move in slow motion. Kurapika dared to look over the child’s face at last. Despite the pale hair, the shape of the face was startlingly familiar. He wondered if Leorio and this person were related. It made him realize he hadn’t met enough people from Leorio’s home country to know how people there generally looked. 

“What’s your name?” asked Kurapika in a daze. The physical condition of the person in the bed gave the impression he might pass away at any moment, and Kurapika was overcome with a strong aversion to witnessing such an event. He’d seen adults die in battle. He’d killed full-grown men in cold blood. But, none of this meant he was prepared or willing to linger in a sick ward long enough to watch a frail child, a stranger, breath their last.

Kurapika didn’t hear the answer. The child’s name was unfamiliar, and Kurapika didn’t catch it as it left the child’s mouth. A question was asked of him in return, but Kurapika didn’t respond. Pairo answered in Kurapika’s stead while Kurapika retreated a step. The curtains fell into place. Kurapika took a few more steps back. Before he knew it, he was leaving. Pairo came shuffling out after a moment with a book in his arms, demanding to know where Kurapika was going all of the sudden, without even saying goodbye. 

“What’s that?” asked Kurapika when he saw the book. They were in the hall again, heading back to the office where Kurapika was supposed to be working and awaiting a call from Mizaistom. Pairo handed the book over, and Kurapika skimmed the cover as he walked.

“Leorio’s friend said this is Leorio’s,” explained Pairo. He was out of breath from having hurried after Kurapika. “I don’t think they know there’s a station library. They want us to give this to Leorio and tell him to bring something else. They finished it. They didn’t like it.”

Kurapika turned the book over. It was a catalogue of observed phenomena on the lake’s surface, an index of a much larger collection. Why Leorio had given this to a sick person to read was beyond Kurapika. It was little more than a list bound into a book.

“How long has that person been here?” asked Kurapika. “When did you meet them?”

“I met them two days ago. Leorio was awake, as usual, walking around. You know how he is. He had the book already and had to get some bandages. I went with him. He put the bandages on—before that, the hand looked very bad. It was sort of blueish. The kid couldn’t move it.”

“What do they have? What disease is that?”

“Leorio didn’t say.”

“How many times does Leorio go to see them?”

“He doesn’t. He’s never gone since, not that I know.”

“He’s just leaving them there alone?”

“Yes. They can’t walk like me, so, they have to stay in bed. Every time I go, they ask me where Leorio is. The book is always there, the same. This time I felt bad, so, I took it for them.”

Kurapika eyed Pairo warily. “You visit them? By yourself? Often?”

“This was the third time.”

“…Why?”

Pairo shrugged. “I thought they could tell me more about Leorio.”

“Why are you interested in hearing about Leorio?”

“Because I didn’t think you would tell me.”

“Just like with Nen?”

“Yes.”

They’d reached the office again. Kurapika woke up the computer. Unsurprisingly, there were no calls. He picked up the binoculars from the desk and went outside to the hall to look out the window. Leorio was visible at last, squatting in the midst of the leafy vines and grasses, picking tidbits off the ground and storing them in vials and bags. For several minutes, Kurapika observed him, afraid to look away in case something happened. His eyes felt warm and damp pressed so hard against the rubbery eye rests of the binoculars. When he pulled them away, the air was cold and the light too bright.

“Is Leorio okay?” asked Pairo when Kurapika lowered the binoculars and let them hang.

“Yes. He’s heading back now.”

“We have some time to prepare the emergency suits.”

Kurapika nodded and walked with Pairo to the storeroom. He showed Pairo what flaws to look for when selecting gear, allowing Pairo to pick out his and most of Kurapika’s own gear. With so few people around to use anything, nothing was worn out. Sorting through it all and selecting two sets for each person took under an hour. 

“What if we miss Mizaiston?” asked Pairo when Kurapika bypassed the office after they’d left the storeroom. Pairo had slowed down, not realizing Kurapika wasn’t going to stop. He trotted to keep up.

“I doesn’t matter, now,” said Kurapika. “We need to get Leorio to leave. That’s more important.”

“Leorio said you’d be in trouble if you left.”

“He said that he and I would figure it out ourselves, too. I’m holding him to that promise.”

“He said it’s dangerous.”

“So is sticking around here any longer.”

“Kurapika, stop,” said Pairo, dropping the formal address he’d been using so far at Kurapika’s request. “Wait.” 

Kurapika stopped and waited. Pairo was surprised he’d listened.

“What trouble are you in outside?” asked Pairo. “What will happen if people find you? Tell me.”

Kurapika made a dismissive sound and kept walking. Crestfallen, Pairo kept up at a short distance behind. He caught up with Kurapika outside a familiar door he knew from when he’d first arrived to the station. They’d visited there a few times to stare out the window overlooking the basin and the distant mountains. Kurapika wouldn’t speak to him back then, so, Pairo hadn’t been sure why they went there. Only when Leorio had been watching the videos of Dr. Costu’s death did Pairo finally realize the room’s morbid significance.

“Don’t tell Leorio, and in exchange, I’ll answer whatever you want,” said Kurapika, holding up a thin paper envelope he’d plucked from the armrest of the couch. He’d left it there a few days after he’d tried to get Pairo to stop following him. He’d told Pairo in a voice heavy with resignation and disbelief that he was resting easier with a familiar face around, though he didn’t understand why. He’d then told Pairo the details of how Pairo and the rest of the village had died, or at least how it’d been described in reports. Kurapika had been too afraid and waited years to go back, because he wasn’t strong enough to fight the Phantom Troupe, yet. He’d had to train. He’d had to become a Hunter and track them down himself.

“You think I’d tell on you?” asked Pairo, looking between Kurapika and the envelope.

“You probably would if Leorio asked.“

“I’ve never told on you to anyone. Never.”

“But you’ve told Leorio so much already.”

“I knew he was asking so he could help you. He’s someone who can help. I can’t. I’m not the same Pairo you told me about. You don’t listen to me. You don’t trust me.”

“But, I’ll listen to Leorio?”

“Yes, you will. You care what he says. You care about him. If it’s Leorio, you’ll try.”

Kurapika traced his thumb thoughtfully against the edge of the envelope before pressing it flat between his palms. He swallowed.

“So, you know we have to keep him safe, right?” asked Kurapika, staring Pairo down.

“Yes.”

“So, you’ll help me, and you won’t tell on me?”

“I’ll help you. I won’t tell him.”

“Excellent,” said Kurapika. He opened his hands and held up the envelope. “Then, here’s our plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though this always happens this time of year, I still somehow always manage to start messing around and editing right as familial and social obligations start cropping up. It’s a mix of holidays starting and me always tweaking things because the final chapters are usually the most recently written ones. Where I've had ages to tweak the first like fifteen chapters, the last chapters are rougher, and I keep moving stuff (re: dialogues and details of certain scenes) around. I've been reshuffling the last five chapters especially, since the chapter I was planning to put for chapter 21 got moved up to later in the fic.
> 
> Aaand, what I’m trying to say is chapters will not be updated as regularly as before. Like last week, I might end up skipping some updates. Apologies in advance. Anyone who’s followed a fic of mine before in knows the drill. I kinda always do this....


	22. Listing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flashback time! We've reached the part of the fic where I tend to throw all pacing and atmosphere aside and add in flashbacks. Here's your warning in case you're reading too fast.

No matter how good a Samaritan, people didn’t throw money at a nobody Hunter Doctor slaving away in a regional hospital tucked in a poverty-stricken corner of the world the international news cycle didn’t care about. Initially, when it’d come to paying for medication and supplies, Leorio had relied on the considerable donations he’d received from friends and fellow Hunters after graduating. The amount would’ve been a small fortune for anyone without the institution-sized expenses Leorio had to pay. He’d tried to be smart and grow whatever money he didn’t have an immediate use for with investments, but his number of patients had boomed faster than he could afford to keep up with. He’d pulled his investments in the end and poured every last cent into his work, knowing it was unsustainable and that he’d never get it back, but too soft-hearted to see people suffer just because he’d rather collect dividends and interest than save their lives.

At long last, with his pockets near empty and his discontent growing, Leorio had been forced to hunt for funds utilizing the best connections he had: The Hunter Association itself and his enduring popularity among people who appreciated nothing more than a solid, well-utilized punch and an even more solid sense of resolve to a sympathetic cause. Countless Hunters still remembered the final, emotional moments of Leorio’s candidacy for chairman and Gon’s announcement that he was voting for Pariston Hill because Leorio wanted to be a doctor. Therefore, when Leorio re-emerged a few years later to remind everyone that he was a doctor now and needed support, the call had swiftly been answered. All Leorio had to offer in return was himself, his face, his name, and his story.

Gon had been right. All Leorio wanted was to be a doctor. Being only a doctor, however, would never have been enough. He needed to be a spokesman, an ambassador, a public face to a cause people weren’t going to support unless he told them it needed their help. The need for money, in the end, controlled him as much as it ever had. The benefits a Hunter’s License provided could afford an education no problem, but an education was pennies in comparison to what he needed to run his practice. Therefore, instead of providing around the clock care, Leorio had to petition and beg for assistance, dividing his time between being a doctor and marketing himself to potential donors. 

Ironically, given the level of support so many fellow Hunters had already offered him, there were few actively practicing Hunter Doctors worldwide. As Leorio’s reputation grew, wealthy families reached out to him, offering several times the going rates for care in order to guarantee the services of a certified Hunter. After torturing himself for days over the decision, Leorio swallowed his pride and began accepting offers by those whose cases he figured would take the least amount of time and effort to treat. He set strict conditions on these patients, telling them that they had to come to him for their consultations. The money offered upfront would count as a donation, and any further expenses incurred in treatment would be covered by the patients themselves. Once the patients had recovered or had a continuing care plan in place, they’d have to leave Leorio’s clinic and work with doctors at home. Most patients accepted these terms. Those who wouldn’t either went elsewhere, or bargained harder, certain that if they only listed a high enough price, they’d hit the amount Leorio would sell for.

“I lied. It wasn’t an accident I ran into you earlier. Everyone’s been talking about the genius saint of a doctor, the zero-ambition Hunter who cares more for the lives and well-being of others than himself or his dignity. You’re famous. I knew exactly where to find you from the start.”

Leorio slid lower into his seat at the back of the trendy side street restaurant-bar he’d ducked into at random while trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and anyone who’d recognize him. Apparently, he’d failed.

“You should stop slouching like that. You’re too tall to be inconspicuous. You’d be better off sitting normally than trying to hide. Looking suspicious gets you noticed a lot faster.” 

Leorio neither replied nor made an effort to straighten his posture. If anything, he only slouched further out of insolence. The person standing next to the table sighed and grabbed the back of the nearest chair, pulling it out.

“But, then again, I suppose blending in doesn’t come naturally to someone like you. You always want to be noticed and respected just for existing. Heaven forbid you enter a room and every head doesn’t swivel in your direction and call you ‘sir’, or rather, ‘doctor’, now.”

Leorio pursed his lips and drew his beer close, as if he needed to protect it from a man he’d never seen drink anything stronger than a cup of slightly over-steeped green tea. To his surprise, his instincts were spot on. Kurapika reached down and pulled the beer from his grasp with a hard tug. He handed it off to a passing waiter, careful not to spill it, and announced that his friend would be switching to water for the rest of the night. After this, Kurapika finally sat down.

“What the hell is your problem?” demanded Leorio. “I had one sip of that. You owe me 1000 jeni.”

Kurapika frowned and looked around, as if searching for a price posted on a wall, or else advertised discreetly in the sophistication of the restaurant’s clientele. “That can’t have cost you 1000 jeni,” he concluded.

“I’ve added on interest, as well as my pain and suffering.”

With a shrug, Kurapika reached for the wallet in his back pocket. He pulled out a crisp 1000 jeni bill and placed it on the table between him and Leorio without a word. Leorio stared at the money before looking back up at Kurapika, who’d just finished putting his wallet away.

“Is…uh…everything okay?” asked Leorio. “You took that way too literally. You actually just owe me 400 jeni. Seriously.”

“Count the rest as a donation to your cause.”

With this abrupt and unwelcome reminder, the corner of Leorio’s mouth twisted into a lopsided sneer. “Ah, 600 whole jeni?” he asked, pretending to be impressed. “Thanks. That solves all my problems. That was just the 600 jeni I needed to max out all the money I will ever need, forever, the end, from now on. You’ve saved me.”

Kurapika rested his head in one hand and with the other, picked up a branded coaster to read the printed slogan. He put the coaster back down a second later, uninterested, and fixed his gaze on the counter behind the bar near the front of the room.

“I’m not going to argue or pick a fight right now, if that’s what you’re waiting for,” said Kurapika after catching Leorio staring at him. “I think I’m smart enough to have learned there’s no point when you’re like this. Anyway, how have you been?”

Leorio’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want?” he asked. It was suspicious enough that Kurapika had sought him out. It was more suspicious that he hadn’t immediately told him why.

“Nothing.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. There wasn’t enough time to catch up earlier. There were a lot of people around you. You didn’t even recognize me and tried to shake my hand like I was a stranger.”

Leorio sighed, thinking back to the crowded event hall and the blur of faces he’d only just escaped a half hour ago. “It’s not that I didn’t recognize you,” he said. “I just didn’t see you. Like you said. It was too many people at once. Everyone was blurring together. I couldn’t tell anyone apart in the crowd.”

Kurapika let out a small puff of laughter at the irony. “Imagine,” he said, “if that had been the only time you’d ended up seeing me for months.”

Leorio’s mouth twisted again, this time downwards, as if he tasted something bitter in Kurapika’s words. “I honestly thought it would be,” he admitted. “At least until you snuck up on me now.”

“I was sneaking?” asked Kurapika. “I distinctly remember I saw _you_ sneaking out of the charity dinner yourself, first. All I did was follow you. I tried to stop you in the street earlier, but you didn’t even recognize me then. You said ‘no, thank you’ and brushed me off without even looking over, as if I’d been trying to sell you something.”

Leorio grimaced and reached for his beer before remembering it wasn’t there. He balled the reaching hand into a fist and hung his head, ashamed.

“It’s the suit,” he said. “I have a hard time recognizing you in a suit.”

“Really?” asked Kurapika. “You knew it was me when I joined the Zodiacs.”

“I mean in a crowd. Besides me, you were the only Zodiac even wearing a suit.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Kurapika with a thoughtful nod. “It really was just us.”

“Yeah. Cluck even joked about it.”

“Joked about what?”

“Us being a matching set.”

“Didn’t the former vice-chairmen wear a suit?”

“Only technically was what that guy wearing a suit. It was more a costume cut in the shape of a suit, and just as abnormal as how everyone else in the Zodiacs was dressing. Beans, however, wore a suit.” 

“He wasn’t a Zodiac.”

“No, but he was always around.”

The waiter arrived with the water and a soft drink Kurapika had ordered for himself, along with a bowl of olives and lemon that Kurapika looked at for a moment but didn’t eat. Leorio pulled the olives over to his side of the table and took one, biting the flesh from the stone with pensive slowness before spitting the stone out discreetly into his curled hand and dropping it into a napkin. He took another while Kurapika stared across the room again, keeping a close eye on the door for no other reason than that, out of the two of them, he was the one facing it. After a minute, Leorio made a face and looked over his shoulder, too, feeling a little uneasy with how interested Kurapika was with the rest of the room. When he looked back in accusatory question, Kurapika smiled and shook his head.

“I’m trying to remember what the last thing we spoke about was. I don’t know what to talk about, so, I thought I could start from there, but it turns out I forgot.”

“Do you mean in person or over the phone?” asked Leorio, depositing another stone. 

“In person.”

“I think we complained about work. You were wondering how many Association assigned missions you’d have to take before people started calling you a Temp Hunter behind your back. You didn’t want the money, though. You just wanted something new, to sort of shop around for something outside the usual Blacklist Hunting, which you weren’t especially a fan of in the first place except as a means to an end. I suggested you could wait until Gon’s out of school, and then you and him could go exploring together.”

“Oh yeah,” said Kurapika, raising a finger in the air, “now, I remember.” He took a breath and said, “We were talking about your girlfriend. As in, you actually found a woman who wanted to be your girlfriend, even after she found out you were a Hunter.”

Leorio paused before he could plop another bitter olive into his mouth.

“What…girlfriend?” he asked, scowling. “I don’t remember that part of the conversation. I don’t even remember the last time I went on a date, much less had a girlfriend. Are you sure that’s a real conversation you had with me and not just something you dreamed?”

“I’m positive we talked about it. It was a big deal. You were anxious about missing a date because your schedule had changed.”

Leorio’s face scrunched up in thought, unable to remember either the conversation or the specific woman. Of course, his awful schedule had ruined more relationships than he could count, but he couldn’t remember one that he’d specifically shared with Kurapika of all people. 

“Did I tell you a name? What she looked like? Where I met her?”

“No.”

“What did I tell you?”

“You were complaining about work and how you might miss a date with a girl you’d been seeing, and it sucked because she really seemed to like you, even if you were a Hunter, which is something two girls dumped you for after they found out you weren’t the kind of Hunter stereotype—or even the kind of doctor stereotype—that’s famous in your country for being rich.”

Leorio thought back harder. Then, crashing down on top of him like a lamp from the ceiling, everything flooded back. He winced and recoiled, but there was no escaping the shame.

“Dammit, Kurapika,” he groaned, “that was like four or five months ago. Almost half a year by now. You can’t just expect me to remember tiny details from half a year ago.”

“You remembered my concerns about taking on temp assignments.”

Leorio groaned again, louder, his shoulders drooping. “It’s not--that’s not the same,” he insisted. “And anyway, are you serious that it’s been half a year since we met in person?”

“It’s been more like four months. Closer to a third of a year.”

“That makes me feel worse. I completely forgot about that girl in four months. Ugh, and now I remember how bad I felt when I had to break up with her. Why did you have to remind me? Right after taking away my drink?”

“I, uh…” said Kurapika, looking away, embarrassed. “I didn’t realize…uh…that you…huh.” He frowned and sat back in his seat, shutting up before he ended up sticking his foot in his mouth. After a moment, he stood from the table, emitting a short, purposeful hum that revealed nothing of his intentions for leaving.

“Here,” said Kurapika when he was back. He placed a substantially sized beer on the table in front of Leorio. “You’re thirsty, right? Taking the first one was rude, but I was worried you’d drunk more than you were letting on, since I took a walk around the area before coming inside, and it looked like you were starting another. I didn’t realize it was still just the first one that you hadn’t really touched. Now that I think about it, when I picked it up it was rather warm.”

Leorio arched a brow. “This is three times as big as the beer I ordered.”

“It’s okay. I won’t let you get into trouble.”

“It’s not enough to get me into trouble.”

“Then, why complain about how much it is?”

“Because you bought it, and it implies you think I need this much.”

“You seemed as if you did when you snuck out of the hotel.”

“You’re saying I seemed as if I were sneaking out to binge drink alone in some random bar in a city I’ve never been to? That was the very pathetic and specific vibe I was giving you because I didn’t want to field questions disguised as small talk and shake hands for another three hours?”

“You’re the one always telling me you need a drink when you’re in a bad mood.”

“That’s just something people say, and anyway, I say ‘a drink’, not ‘to get shitfaced’. Those are two extremely different responses to stress. I’m not going home every night and getting blackout drunk because I had a hard day. I still have to get to work the next morning.”

“And when you don’t have work?”

Leorio burst out laughing. He picked up the drink and toasted Kurapika’s comment, as if it were the most hilarious thing he’d heard in ages. “When I don’t have work?” he asked, succumbing to another fit of laughter before he could take a sip of beer. “Dammit, Kurapika,” he mumbled, shaking his head and wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He pulled the beer over and took several large gulps. Kurapika, who’d been standing since he’d got back, took the opportunity to sit down again.

“Take a break,” said Kurapika. His eyes were stern and his voice low, cutting through Leorio’s tired trickles of laughter with the whiplash inducing snap of a command. Leorio’s expression hardened. He stared Kurapika in the eye without blinking, deeply offended at such a suggestion.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Leorio. “I didn’t come all this way just to give up now.”

“I’m not saying ‘give up’,” said Kurapika. “I’m saying slow down, regroup, try another approach, because what you’re doing now is selfish and stupid.”

Leorio's attitude changed with the mood, growing darker. “I agree it’s stupid,” he said with a small, disparaging laugh carried over from earlier. “I’m not as clever as you. But, I’m also not as selfish as you, either.”

Kurapika would’ve glowered and fumed at a similar accusation in the past, but now, he settled for maintaining a stern, unwavering glare. “You don’t want to let anyone down because it makes you feel bad, and that’s it,” he said. “If you took your feelings out of it, you’d make a smart choice, a better choice, something sustainable that can help more people. Being a Hunter gives you access to more resources than just money. There are people who will follow you and share the load if you only choose to make this bigger than yourself.”

“Bigger than myself? Sharing the load?” echoed Leorio. “I’m not working alone. I have staff. Who do you think takes care of my patients when I’m out begging for alms and bailing on fancy parties I’ve been invited to?”

“But you’re the only Hunter involved, so, that automatically puts you at the center of everything. It shifts too much of the responsibility onto your shoulders. The weight will crush you as it piles up.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” scoffed Leorio. “The one who goes at it alone, who relies on himself ahead of everyone else. Don’t recite tired advice to me you yourself didn’t want to take.”

“Don’t pretend our situations are that comparable,” snapped Kurapika. He rapped hard on the table with two fingers as he spoke, a small sign that Leorio was making him genuinely mad. As a teenager, Kurapika would’ve started raising his voice by now, but adults didn’t have the luxury of shouting at people in public uninhibited without potentially lasting consequences. “I wasn’t trying to help anyone but myself. In your case, your goals aren’t so selfish, but how you’ve handled everything so far is.”

Leorio looked around what he could see of the room, but no-one seemed to be paying him or Kurapika any mind. Kurapika seemed to have mastered the art of arguing across a table without calling attention to himself. Leorio lacked such discretion, and needed a moment to bite his tongue and calm down before speaking. 

“Look,” he managed at last. “It’s not entirely my fault I’m the only Hunter. I’ve asked other Hunter Doctors to help me.” Leorio made a face as he thought back. “Sometimes one will volunteer for a few weeks at a time, but, even when they claim they’ve come to help because they respect the work I’m doing, our interactions eventually just turn into shoptalk about medical Nen. My methods interest them, but my cause isn’t something they’re planning to commit to. They have their own ambitions. I have mine.”

“Then, find people who will commit. That’s what the star-ranking system is designed to reward, isn’t it?”

“Except most Hunters are in it for the money and prestige. Only if helping me gets them one of those things, will they consider it.”

“That’s just an excuse,” said Kurapika sharply. “Find non-Hunters, doctors and medical professionals who are already providing care to those in need. Use their networks to find anyone who looks promising, and teach those people how to use and develop their own healing Nen.”

Leorio almost laughed. “You mean like open a school?” he asked. “I just finished school. The nerve! People already think I’m full of myself as it is. Imagine. Barely working a year, and suddenly _I’m opening a school_? Get real.”

“Not a school,” said Kurapika impatiently. “You didn’t become a Hunter to push the envelope of medical research. Otherwise, you’d be working for Cheadle right now. What I mean is just...you should train people who can do what you do rather than wait around for orders. It’s probably better they’re actual doctors, like-minded professionals who want to help people in need. You could benefit from their experience, too. Don’t forget that one of the most valuable contributions a truly exceptional Hunter can make to society is to bring the right people together to accomplish a goal.”

Leorio honestly wished the solution were something as simple as what Kurapika made it seem. He sighed and pushed his glasses back up. “Maybe. Yeah. I see your point, I do,” he said, the bitter, sarcastic attitude crumbling away. “And maybe one day I _do_ want to branch out, work with existing organizations, develop methods that can make care more accessible. But, right this second…I’m just not ready for all that.”

Leorio thought he was admitting Kurapika was right, conceding the argument, but all Kurapika was hearing were excuses. 

“What will you need before you’re ready?” asked Kurapika.

“I don’t know,” said Leorio, wishing Kurapika would let it go already. “Better Nen? More experience? Time?” He lowered his eyes, glaring at the table. “…Money,” he grumbled towards the 1000 jeni in front of him.

At last, Kurapika relaxed. “Take a break,” he said again, warmer this time. “Use it to travel and make relevant connections outside the Hunter Association. You won’t get more from Hunters than what you’re getting now, no matter how many powerful people they introduce you to and hands you shake.” 

Leorio thought of the crowd of people he’d left behind, some offering and others asking for charity. He sighed, never looking away from money on the table. “Thanks, Kurapika,” he said bitterly. “I guess this has all been a huge waste of time, hasn’t it? Now I see why you bought this stupidly huge beer. Always thinking ahead.”

Leorio could tell Kurapika was holding back a retort in regards to the beer comment. “I’m not saying you’ve wasted time,” he said instead. “I would’ve talked sense to you sooner if I thought you were wasting time.” 

“Really.”

“Of course,” said Kurapika. Leorio didn't respond.

For a moment, Kurapika drummed his fingers on the table and thought. After a pause, shifted his position and slouched, no longer keeping up the straight-backed and professional pretense. Leorio was startled by how abruptly Kurapika could transform into looking his true age. Leorio never consciously added up how much Kurapika’s lack of exaggerated facial expressions and impersonal manner of relating to most people ultimately aged him. Perhaps it was because when they’d met and first got to know each other, Kurapika had been more open and spirited, with only the occasional outburst of anger or thoughtful silence revealing the sort of cold, hardened professional he’d ultimately become. 

Kurapika, meanwhile, had started looking at the bar over Leorio’s shoulders again. He seemed to be speaking to the faraway bottles and backs of strangers across the room as he tried to offer some reassurance.

“You have a good reputation,” he said. “You didn’t waste time. Your reputation now precedes you and serves as a testament to your dedication. Without it, you’d have only been a Hunter trained by Cheadle Yorkshire, maybe a Hunter who Hunters respected, but who everyone else might’ve have considered too academic or potentially too entitled, someone unrelatable and a hassle to work with. You’d have mainly attracted people who’d have put status ahead of all other requirements, who’d have hired you because you’re a Hunter, not because you’re actually the best.”

Leorio fought the knee-jerk reaction to make a self-derogatory remark that would downplay whatever Kurapika said about him that sounded too good to be true. He wasn’t sure his reputation was all that great or far-reaching, especially right now. From where Leorio was standing, it was impossible to be sure of anything. He spent most of his time in patients’ rooms, in offices, and traveling to fundraisers that passed by in dizzying blurs of strangers who pronounced his name in ways he barely recognized it. Discussing in theoretical terms what he might be able to accomplish beyond his current, narrow scope was one thing, but when he imagined somehow trying to implement anything even vaguely reminiscent of Kurapika’s most optimistic aspirations, he came to a grinding halt at one nonnegotiable point.

“I can’t just abandon my patients, Kurapika. They’ll have nowhere to go.”

Kurapika had been expecting this, but the brief flicker of annoyance that crossed his face indicated he’d been hoping by some miracle it wouldn’t come up. He needed a moment to think before saying anything rash, so, he turned away, resting an elbow on the table and draping his other arm over the back of his chair. Leorio sipped vaguely at his beer as he waited for whatever argument Kurapika might assume would convince him to leave patients behind for ambition and an intangible “something bigger” than whatever it was he was currently doing.

“Okay. It’s true,” said Kurapika. “You’ll look bad. Some people might hate you and say you’re only after stars and status….” He stopped, grimaced, and thought a little longer. “But of course, that’s not really what you’re worried about. I know. Looking bad has never bothered you all that much.” 

With a heavy expression, Kurapika dropped his arm from the back of the chair and sat normally again. He looked down at his clasped hands as he spoke, making small gestures with his thumbs. Leorio stared into the lines of carbonation rising up from the bottom of his glass.

“You could stay as you are now,” Kurapika went on. “You could selfishly choose to not change, to have a handful of patients depend on you for their lives, deeming you their savior and praising your saintliness. You could struggle on their behalf, martyr yourself for them, and benevolently forgive them as they take your work for granted and complain when you don’t have time to see every single person waiting outside who’s ill and has no other place to go if not to you. Maybe that’s what you’d prefer. Maybe that’s immediately satisfying in a direct and easy to understand kind of way, since it aligns most directly to what you envisioned as a kid. On the surface, it’s everything you wanted and aspired towards, even though it’s much harder, more painful, and ineffective than you could’ve imagined. In the end, it’s over with nothing left behind, because the world is still the same one you entered, untouched and unchanged, only endured. That’s why you hesitate to leave that sort of work now. Because you know what happens, what is lost, once you’re gone.”

Kurapika took a deep breath and picked up the soft drink he’d neglected. He took a long sip, his throat having gone dry as he’d spoken. He set the drink down too fast, creating a loud thud as it hit the table. He waited for Leorio’s response instead of adding anything else.

Leorio, for his part, wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t even all that sure this was an argument he wanted to win, since, win or lose, he was still a selfish jerk letting people down. Ironically, he’d spent so much time beating people to the punch, calling himself selfish before anyone else could, that he’d started losing sight of what his own selfishness looked like. In the end, he wasn’t selfish how he wanted to be, in the go-getter, unscrupulous way, which was how everyone with the “real” money and power seemed to be. He’d tried to mold himself into that shape, but it’d never stuck. He’d always morph back into the original version of himself, the one who felt powerless all the time unless he was reducing the suffering and powerless of others directly, with his own hands, and seeing the results right there in front of him. The gratifying feeling was hard to give up, and it was true: It was selfish. It was a selfishness that volunteered and benefited others, but it was just as bad as the moneygrubbers and faceless bureaucrats who’d created a system where someone could work and give as much as Leorio, becoming both a Hunter and a doctor at the top of his field, and still mean nothing in the whole, grand scheme of things, because the system would overcome and outlast him unless he built something as lasting and powerful to challenge it, that would endure even when he was too tired to work or didn’t feel like shaking hands, but skipped out to duck into a bar to have a drink in a city he didn’t know.

“Well, so...you’re right,”  said Leorio, caving and admitting to the unflattering truth instead of defending himself from it. “It’s not about how bad I’ll look. That’s true. The worst part for me is how bad I’ll feel about it after. I don’t want people to praise me. I’m not worried if people hate me. I just genuinely worry about what’s going to happen to the patients after I’m gone, especially the ones I couldn’t see, who I could've helped.”

“You’ve always been sentimental,” agreed Kurapika. One of the small smiles that’d replaced the wide, eager grins Leorio had grown used to seeing until they’d parted ways at Kokoro Mountain, spread slowly across Kurapika’s face.

“Perhaps,” said Leorio. A rush of warmth ran through him. He tilted his beer to look accusingly down into his glass and get a better estimate of how much was left.

“Perhaps...” echoed Kurapika ironically back to him.

Leorio hadn’t really been planning to drink so much. He eyed what was left in the glass warily, questioning his boast to Kurapika that this wasn’t enough to get him into trouble. The truth was he’d been cutting back. Emergencies happened at the hospital and clinic, matters he had to attend to without warning. By now, maybe his tolerance was a lot lower. Maybe he should put the beer down instead of sipping away at it carelessly just because it was there.

“In any case, where am I even supposed to start?” asked Leorio at last, pushing his drink away and folding his hands together on the table in front of him. He spotted the olives again and grabbed one. “I barely have enough time to get anything done as it is. So, what’s your plan?”

Kurapika frowned and looked up. “My plan?”

“You brought this up. You’re the one telling me to take a break.”

“And now I have to plan everything out for you?”

“Humor me,” said Leorio around the olive in his cheek. “Paint me a picture of what I’m supposed to do. Maybe it’ll seem more real, and I’ll be more inclined to actually do it.”

Kurapika didn’t hide how much he disdained being put on the spot like an unprepared student being called to answer a question in front of the class before anyone else. “Okay,” he said. “One second.” He took another sip of his soft drink to wet his lips, set it down, and clasped his hands as well, mirroring Leorio sans olive. “Maybe for now, you can stop admitting new patients. Finish treating your active cases, and wrap up whatever other obligations you have. That seems like an obvious place to start.”

Leorio nodded. “It does,” he said. “But, hilarious as it might sound, I’m so broke, I don’t even have the money to close up shop. At least not enough to close it properly.” 

“What?”

“It’s going to cost me. Maybe a year or so ago, I would’ve had the money, but as things are now, I’m begging and selling myself just to make sure my current patients are taken care of. If I abandon them, who’s going to give me a cent? Me? The doctor who tossed aside the people who were relying on him because he suddenly had bigger plans, and they were just anchors holding back him back?”

Kurapika pursed his lips. “Fine,” he said. He sighed. “How much do you think you’ll need?”

“Huh?”

“To provide the most favorable and efficient conclusion to your work. How much will it take?”

Leorio shook his head. “More than anyone’s going to give me at once, that’s for sure. More than anyone has ever given me all at once. If I scrimp and save, _maybe_ in three years I could manage….”

“What about in six months?”

Leorio let out a long, incredulous hiss of air between his teeth. “Ch’. You’re talking almost 70 million jeni. I was thinking more a gradual weaning off….”

“I recently sold an estate worth over 1.5 billion.”

Leorio’s jaw nearly hit the table. For a moment, he’d forgotten what they were talking about. “Are you kidding?” he asked. “Are you a damn Real Estate Hunter, now? Was that your calling in the end?”

“Since it’s true your expenses won’t end after you wrap up your current practice, I’ll donate 85 million so you have some flexibility.”

Hearing this, Leorio was unhappily reminded why Kurapika was even mentioning a 1.5 billion jeni estate he’d sold. “Don’t,” insisted Leorio. “That’s insane. I’ll accept some money from you, sure, but not that much.”

“It’s nothing. I’ve made a lot of lucrative investments. As you know, what I was hunting before now had an exorbitantly large price, which I had to be able to pay….”

Leorio arched a brow, as was expected to any references to the “price” of Scarlet Eyes. He immediately thought of what else Kurapika had paid, things money could never buy back, no matter how smartly he invested. Kurapika got quiet in response to the look, and Leorio changed the subject.

“If you can throw around 85 million, you must be one of the top richest Hunters in the world, but I don’t recall seeing your name on that list,” said Leorio. “I know, because I called every Hunter on that list personally and have shaken their hands, and none of them offered me almost a hundred million jeni after.”

“Not every Hunter of means is on that list. If you’re rich enough, you can even pay the Association to keep you off of it, since a Hunter’s reason for amassing a fortune the size of your entire country’s GDP might require some discretion.” Kurapika rolled his eyes when Leorio shot him a suspicious look. “But anyway, no, I’m not on the list. I’ve been liquidating, so, as far as rankings go, I slip a little further back each year.”

“Have you ever been in the top ten?”

“An associate of mine has. I avoid that sort of attention when I can.”

“Did you pay the Association not to put you in the top ten?”

“No. I wasn’t the boss of the organization I was in, and all the business is in the boss’s name. Crime pays, but our organization didn’t stay criminal much longer once I got control of it. I made sure of that.”

Leorio nodded along, feeling dizzy as the reality of Kurapika’s vast wealth established itself firmly in his mind. He wondered why Kurapika hadn’t brought it up before. He then realized he probably wouldn’t have wanted to know. Knowing something like that would’ve haunted him, keeping him awake at night despairing over why someone like Kurapika could become disgustingly rich in only a few years of mild to moderate criminal activity, while someone who’d have put that money to good use and helped people had to beg on the phone and atop podiums in event halls, fighting for attention amid a sea of equally meritorious causes that relied on the charity of people more like Kurapika to continue.

“In that case why stop at 85 million?” asked Leorio, laughing because what he was saying felt fake. It wasn't like these numbers existed for real. It had to be some bullshit hypothetical amount, like when kids argued amongst each other about what they’d do if they won the lottery. “How about you spring for the whole hundred million?”

“I could spare it, if you need it.”

“Are you even serious.”

“Yes. I am.”

Leorio picked up his beer again, but a voice eerily similar to Kurapika’s in the back of his mind reminded him they weren’t going to drink anymore of it. Instead, he waved it at Kurapika in a mocking toast and wet his lips without drinking.

“You have big plans for the whole billion and change left over?” he asked.

“I’m going to use it to set bounties,” said Kurapika. Leorio dropped his beer on the table with an astonished thud. Kurapika forced a small, uncomfortable smile, embarrassed by Leorio’s animated look of shock. 

“I’ve been setting bounties,” admitted Kurapika to clarify this wasn’t a special case. “Mostly against key players in the flesh collector’s market, the deep underground ones who arrange the procurement of ‘new’ items. The ones who make it lucrative to hunt human beings.”

“So like, you’re outsourcing the Blacklist Hunting stuff?”

Kurapika made a face, apparently having never considered it from this specific angle. “In a way,” he agreed with cautious reluctance. “I don’t have access to every social circle or criminal network worldwide. I can’t be in thirty places at once. I was never in this to make Blacklist Hunting my true career, since I only ever had one target. There are a lot of reasons why I’d rather set bounties than earn them from now on.”

“Have you…” Leorio started, but hesitated and looked around. He hunched forward and lowered his voice, motioning for Kurapika to come in closer before he finished asking, “…have you had any results yet?”

“You mean have I paid out on any of the bounties, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Leorio sat back as if in slow motion, nodding at nothing and taking a few deep breaths that came out as clipped sighs. He spotted his beer and, in his bewildered state, took a long drink before even attempting to say anything more. Kurapika, still leaning in, watched him without daring to so much as raise a brow, least it result in an avalanche of endless complaining exacerbated by Leorio’s frustrating proclivity to get loud when he was upset, even in public. 

At last, Leorio lowered the beer and held it close as he leaned back in, ready to communicate like a normal person.

“Is it safe?” he asked in almost a whisper.

“Compared to…? What? Hunting these people myself? Without Emperor Time?”

“And what did I tell you? See, this is what you get for designing your Hatsu without a ‘surviving this bullshit’ contingency plan in place.”

“And what happened to you promising to stop reminding me? Izunavi warned me every step of the way, my own Nen instructor whom I respect. It’s done. It’s over. You _said_ you understood that.”

Leorio made a dismissive sound and pulled away, ashamed by his own words being paraphrased back at him. “Sorry,” he grunted. “You’re right. To be honest, when I asked if it were safe just now, I wasn’t even thinking about Emperor Time. I was thinking more about these people you’re putting bounties on, about them retaliating, and if you were ready for that.”

“I’m always ready for that.”

“But you can’t be for everything.”

“I can’t make that an excuse to do nothing,” said Kurapika. He regretted his snapping tone and hesitated, softening before adding, “If whatever happens only happens to me, I can handle it. I can accept it.”

“It doesn’t only happen to you. Everyone who cares about you is affected.”

“I can’t make yours, or anyone’s, fear of losing me—of losing any of the people you care about—an excuse to do nothing.”

Leorio swallowed, feeling his mouth suddenly dry, as if all the moisture had gone down in one small, strangled gulp. He licked the inner curve of his lips, his tongue sticky and slick like a slug. After another short struggle to swallow, he picked up the beer and drank without stopping. As he reached the bottom of the glass, he sat back to finish it all. He set it down again on the table with an obligatory sound of satisfaction, although it came out like more of a sigh, lacking any hint of true enjoyment. He crossed his arms and leaned back into his seat, eyes shut and teeth clenched, looking as if he’d fallen asleep so pissed off he’d carried the anger into his dreams and retained the expression on his face. 

“Leorio?” asked Kurapika. A little louder, he repeated it. He was forced to reach out and nudge Leorio’s shoulder before Leorio’s eyes shot open and the furrowed brow and thin line of his mouth relaxed. He winced and offered Kurapika an awkward half smile while rubbing his neck and apologizing for spacing out.

“I hope you don’t usually get like that around patients,” said Kurapika after a small sip of his soft drink.

“No, never,” said Leorio quickly. The hand still on his neck started up again as he admitted, “But...around staff, yes. They all kind of laugh about me having a temper, though. I try not to give orders when I’m upset, not because being emotional will cause a mistake, but because I’ve sort of been forced to realize that yelling what I want at people creates a bad working environment. So, now, they just laugh at me and say my bark is worse than my bite. Like I’m a child who voluntarily puts himself in time-out when he’s having a tantrum. No respect.”

“It’s true. You’re very loud.”

“…Yeah.”

“But in the end, you always listen to reason.”

Leorio scoffed. “In the end, I always roll over, you mean.”

“In the end, you always go along with what’s best for everyone and not just yourself,” said Kurapika. Leorio snapped his mouth shut. Something in the look on his face embarrassed Kurapika, who was quick to add, “But…it’s never without a fair amount of grumbling beforehand…and during, and after.”

“Thanks,” said Leorio sarcastically.

“…And even now.”

“Shut up.”

Kurapika waved over a server and passed them the 1000 jeni bill already on the table. He took out his wallet to collect the receipt and his change when the waiter came back. He didn’t bother to double check the amounts of either. He caught Leorio staring as he slipped his wallet into his pocket.

“Did you want something else?” he asked with a small frown. “I have to leave, but I’ll leave you with another drink if you want.”

“No, thanks,” said Leorio. “You don’t need to. I’ve had plenty. I don’t want to ‘get into trouble’, as you put it.”

“It doesn’t have to be alcohol. Just something to hold onto for however much longer you plan to sit here.”

“No, it’s okay. Really,” said Leorio with a dismissive wave, urging Kurapika to go and not bother. “Also, if you think about it, it’s kind of weird that you’d just buy me something as you’re leaving. Who does that? It looks like I don’t have money, like a kid. Like you have to take care of me or something.”

“I took the change without thinking. Do you want it?”

“No. Just go. I’m not so broke I can’t buy myself dinner or a drink. It’s money for patients I’m begging for, not my own living expenses. I’m an adult. I can buy my own sodas.”

“Oh...” said Kurapika. His face went blank in well-mannered mortification as the realization struck. “I don’t mean to imply...that you can’t afford it…. I’m sorry. As the boss, I’m usually covering others’ expenses. It’s natural for me to do so. I didn’t mean it that way.”

Leorio laughed at the absolute sincerity of Kurapika’s apology. “Okay, look,” he said. “I’m not saying it’s bad to hang out with your subordinates, especially in a dangerous job like yours where you need to get along and rely on each other for safety, but seriously: You need to make friends outside of work. Especially if you’re everyone’s boss.”

“It’s a lot of work, though.”

“Sorry, are you saying it’s too much of a bother, or are you saying you’re too busy?”

Kurapika lowered his head to hide a rare puff of muted laughter behind the hand already half covering his mouth. “Maybe it’s both of those,” he admitted. He shrugged as his brief, highly restrained laughter subsided. “But, I actually said that thinking it was a bother.”

“I know you did,” Leorio pretended to grumble, trying to look displeased despite the faint curl of a self-satisfied grin at the corner of his mouth. “There was no question.”

Kurapika let his hand fall, but kept a trace of his smile in place as he checked his watch and insisted once more that he needed to get going. Leorio insisted he leave already, but stopped him after a few steps and announced he’d like artichoke pasta and a mineral water, if Kurapika was still taking orders. Kurapika narrowed his eyes at the last-minute request, but a few minutes after he’d left, the meal arrived with change, plus an unexpected but well-appreciated coffee when Leorio had finished eating.

As he left the bar, Leorio texted the Hunter who’d invited and hosted him, explaining he’d been contacted by the hospital about a patient. It wasn’t a lie, not entirely. What the hospital had notified him of were both a patient’s updated condition and another's, a recently admitted child Leorio hadn’t even got to see, death. After reading this, Leorio hadn't been able to endure another minute of the event taking place around him. He’d walked out with no appetite and no destination in mind. There was absolutely nowhere for him to have gone. He was never going to get anywhere he needed or wanted to be at that moment. So, instead, he’d wandered about, aimless, and Kurapika had trailed after to meet up with him.

_Take a break._

Leorio scoffed at the idea. At the same time, he considered it. A hundred million could buy him the privilege of starting over while leaving him with more than enough change and many millions of coffees after. It wouldn’t magically fix everything, but he could relax, recalibrate, regroup. He could get research done. He could share the weight of the work, listen to reason, and, as usual, shut up and go along with what was hopefully best for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For all the painstaking effort I've put into reorganizing chapters, I posted this one because it was the one already up on ao3 from a few weeks ago before I decided to move things around. Lmao, carefully laid plans of mice and men and whatnot....
> 
> As far as I can see, maybe the next two weeks won't have an update, so, that's why I decided to post this chapter that's already here as a draft. I would say from this point subscribe to the fic to keep track of updates, but I won't rein in your chaotic energy if your style is more "never bookmark, never mark for later or subscribe; only wait for fics to pass by while I'm scrolling the recent updates". 
> 
> If that's the case, live your life, friend. Godspeed. For everyone else, do whatever suits you, as well. Unlike Kurapika, I'm no-one's boss. Cheers!


	23. Kids

It was Pairo’s turn as lookout when Leorio finally appeared at the end of the path leading up to the station. Kurapika made Pairo stay in the office to wait for Mizaistom and went to greet Leorio at the main door and help him with the decontamination procedure, rightly assuming Leorio would return exhausted and foggy headed from both from the long, uphill trek through the heat, and the mental strain of contending with Lake Solaris’s probing focus at full tilt. He asked Leorio what he’d seen as he helped him removed his suit, but all Leorio said was that he agreed; it hadn’t been a mushroom that’d exploded. Leorio was more concerned about whether Mizaistom had ever called, and was disappointed to hear he hadn’t. With a quick apology for forcing Kurapika to stay alone longer, he told Kurapika to go back to the office. Leorio would head to one of the science labs he’d set up a workstation in the evening before. If Kurapika wanted, he could send Pairo, but Leorio wasn’t going to have any work for Pairo to do. Maybe, though, maybe after an entire day alone together, Kurapika wanted a break.

Considering what he’d just witnessed hours before, Kurapika read more into the offer to take Pairo off his hands than Leorio knew. At least now maybe Leorio understood better how Kurapika was feeling, though Kurapika still wished it hadn’t come to this. Leorio shouldn’t have been made to experience the pain of a crushing loss maliciously undone by a supernatural power who’s most dubious intention was the fact it didn’t have any clear intentions at all beyond provoking a reaction, any reaction, for the sake of observing the result.

Leorio emerged from the lab later, just as Kurapika was arriving to notify him he was done waiting for Mizaistom for the night and would be making himself a late dinner in the infirmary. Leorio caught Kurapika’s eye for less than a second as he stepped out into the hall. He looked away and cleared his throat, announcing into the empty space in front of him that the explosion was, unfortunately, man-made. He’d explain how he knew this and what it meant once they were done with dinner and he’d had a moment to relax.

“Here’s the problem,” said Leorio when they’d come back to the office. They had no plans for so late in the evening, but it felt more productive to turn on and sit around the computer, just in case. 

“I hate climbing trees, but I took your advice and stuck to them, and to climbing boulders, instead of wandering off the path into the woods. Even so, I think generally the paths are safer than traversing the unmarked woods on foot. Not because of the plants, but because someone might’ve laid mines or other explosive weapons around the lake. It might explain why the paths haven’t been maintained. It could be the local government is trying to antagonize the Hunter Association for some reason. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were something Mizai never told us, or if there’s something the local HQ hasn’t been telling the Association. Morro and Costu by themselves might not have known what was going on, because the outdoor cameras have been down this entire time.”

“I entertained a similar theory, but if someone were trying to terrorize Dr. Costu or Dr. Morro, they underestimated the resolve of those two to find ‘natural’ reasons and blame the lake for literally everything out here they don’t understand.”

“Perhaps. Or, whoever it was might’ve been aiming for something they wanted to destroy.”

“Blowing up the lake would be impossible. You’d have to be as crazy as Dr. Morro to try.”

“Not the lake.”

“Then, what?”

“Unexpected company.”

Kurapika pictured the sickly child in a remote corner of the dust-covered convalescence ward, and with that overwhelming image went whatever smart remark or criticism he normally would’ve spouted off at Leorio’s far too evasive way of putting the matter as “unexpected company”. Meanwhile, Leorio was saying something about a stint as a volunteer battlefield medic, which had contributed to his ability to tell a man-made explosion from a mushroom or whatever Kurapika had postulated earlier. Kurapika didn’t catch every word of this. It wasn’t until Leorio mentioned Dr. Costu that he started listening closer.

“…hesitate to call him a ‘doctor’, what with the danger he put you in, but he did have the medical expertise to save your life. Had to be some sort of genius in that, at least, even if he was an idiot about the basin’s ecology, despite that being the entire purpose of anyone even being out here….”

“Dr. Costu didn’t save my life,” said Kurapika. Leorio, though unhappy with being interrupted, made a sarcastic sound, as if what Kurapika had said were something he’d have been fully willing to believe if he hadn’t already seen evidence to the contrary. “Reaching the infirmary where he could treat me is what saved me,” explained Kurapika. “Knowing what to do in a crisis is what saved me, and I only knew that because you helped me before I ever arrived.”

Kurapika watched Leorio’s entire demeanor change. Leorio cleared his throat and looked at his hands, uncomfortable with such abrupt, but earnest, praise. Half a second later, he mumbled something inaudible in a begrudging tone and stood up. His movements were too quick, with an inauthentic air of purpose, and rapidly devolved into a quiet scramble for something, anything, to do. He spotted and gathered up a pile of books Pairo had left on the end of the counter. As he straightened the pile, he said something caught between “nudge this out of the way” and “take them to the station library later”—he hadn’t decided which. A book beneath the others caught his eye, and he jolted to a halt. Without offering any explanation, he readjusted the pile to conceal the book before taking it all into in his arms at once.

“I’ll put these away,” said Leorio, barely done speaking before he was out the door. Pairo looked at Kurapika, but Kurapika put a finger to his lips. 

Leorio took longer than necessary to return from shelving the books. Kurapika did him the favor of not sending out a Nen pulse while he was gone to check where he was. The look on Leorio’s face suggested he might need a moment to himself, station regulations or no.

“Long couple of days,” said Leorio with a tired groan when he returned. He leaned back in his chair against the wall and stretched out, long legs and torso nearly filling his corner of the small office. Kurapika was struck by how tall he was. Leorio usually remained more tucked into himself, less intrusive, aware of how he related to the space and people around him. He wasn’t minding all that, now. He was tired far beyond what an understandable lack of sleep and the hours he’d spent trekking through the basin in a suffocating worksuit could explain. Pretending otherwise at this point fooled no-one.

Kurapika got Pairo’s attention and asked him to get Leorio something hot to drink. Maybe it would relax him. Pairo suggested tea, but Kurapika reminded him Leorio hated it. He said Pairo should maybe heat up one of the fortified lemon beverages instead, but Leorio interrupted him, saying tea was fine. Despite Kurapika and Pairo speaking their own language, Leorio had followed well enough to get the gist. Pairo had called the tea a placebo, and Kurapika hadn’t bothered to use Kurta words for “fortified”, “packet”, or “microwave”. Leorio may not have liked tea, true, but he’d rather have that than choke down a steaming mug of hot lemon sports drink.

“Prartzebo,” recited Leorio under his breath once Pairo had gone. Kurapika perked up in recognition of the word.

“It’s the same,” said Kurapika, proud of Leorio for having noticed. “We only pronounce it differently.”

“In my country, too,” said Leorio. “It’s pronounced differently depending on the region, but it’s always spelled the same. We spell it the same as in the Hunter language.”

“We don’t. We add some letters.”

“Sounds like it.”

Leorio’s ironic tone elicited a knowing smile and short puff of laughter from Kurapika. Leorio, meanwhile, hadn’t lightened up even a little. He was pinching the bridge of his nose and staring down at the crook of his arm, hardly blinking. Kurapika’s wistful smile faded. Leorio’s mind was elsewhere, and Kurapika didn’t want to be the first one to admit he knew more or less where.

“The basin winds downwards like a funnel,” said Leorio after a pause. He spoke clearly, without emotion, though Kurapika thought he detected a slight, lingering ironic edge. “ ‘A corkscrew path, spiraling down.’ ”

Kurapika cleared his throat. He pulled over the previous Hunter’s log laying open on the desk and read aloud in a dull voice: “ ‘A corkscrew path, spiraling down. But, more like a funnel, falling into the lake. The road down is never grown over. The antlion’s jaws spread wide. No-one escapes. Come back. Crawl out.’ “

The day before, Leorio had read this same log entry aloud with an elevated brow, refusing to accept a Pro Hunter had written it. He’d commented dryly on the irony of “no-one escapes” when the Hunter had, in fact, escaped. If he’d left anything behind, it was only his dignity.

“You should take a break,” said Kurapika. “You’re the medical officer, so, you more than anyone ought to be able to grant yourself sick leave for a day or two.”

“It’s too much, a day or two,” grumbled Leorio. “I’ve been here for three and a half days, and see what all has happened.”

“You’re in charge of the health of the station’s staff, and the staff includes you.”

“I’m alright. Sleeping so much yesterday threw off my schedule.”

“One nap wouldn’t have made you like this. You aren’t just tired, Leorio.”

“I’m mostly just tired, Kurapika.”

“Can’t you maybe take something?” suggested Kurapika while cognizant of the extremely evident fact that he was the absolute worst person to be suggesting such a course of action. Leorio scowled, but Kurapika didn’t care if he didn’t like it. “If it’s too risky or irresponsible for you to prescribe and administer something yourself, then, let me manage it for you. Tell me what the basic treatment plan is, provide me evidence that it’s indeed standard procedure, and then, hand everything over to me to administrate. I’ll make sure you’re safe. Trust me, at least, because the reason you’re not helping yourself is because you must not trust yourself to do this.”

“No,” said Leorio with a sigh. “It’s that I don’t think it’s that drastic, yet. It’s only been a few days. I still need to adjust to being here.”

“But, these haven’t been normal days. You don’t adjust to this sort of stuff. You can’t wait for it to get better when so much of what you need to do here every day requires being alert and mentally present. This isn’t something you power through.”

“It’s not that I’m powering through it. And besides, I can’t make you take responsibility for—”

“If you can’t let me, then it’s because you don’t think I’m reliable, either.”

“Don’t invent a—“

“Don’t pretend this would be an impossible imposition on me, something I couldn’t handle. Don’t act like I’ll resent it. I never volunteer to do things for others as a courtesy. It’s a sincere offer.” 

“But you—”

Kurapika held up a hand. “Don’t,” he insisted, “tell me that you seriously want to demand that I rely on you to help me all the time, but then you refuse the same support from me when I offer it. If you’re too embarrassed, at least you can empathize with why I don’t like it when you act like you have to do everything for me.”

Leorio squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing as if a dull pain had just cut through him. “You’re talking too much,” he said. “You’re putting words in my mouth when I’m too tired to argue.”

“Nothing I’ve said invalidates my point that you need to do more than wait to ‘adjust to being here’. Nor is any of it proof that I can’t or won’t help you. Make a decision. There has to be a plan.”

Kurapika stood and dropped the logbook onto the desk with a slap loud enough to make Leorio flinch. Kurapika pulled the chair away from the desk and dragged it over, kicking Leorio’s feet away to get past him and line the chair up with the wall. Leorio slouched in the opposite direction as Kurapika sat down next to him. For a few minutes, Kurapika was silent, his head lowered and eyes shut, adopting the classic waiting and thinking position with both his arms crossed that always reminded Leorio of the Hunter Exam, when Kurapika had spent almost every minute of relative downtime similarly posed.

“I’m not against the idea of leaving sooner rather than later,” said Kurapika in a gentler, more confidential tone. He didn’t need to raise his voice now, being so close. “We don’t have to wait for Mizai. We can go on the run, like you said. Or, well, I can go. Killua and I can go. You return to headquarters with Dr. Morro and get back to work.”

“What about Pairo?”

“I’m not sure about him.”

“You want to leave him here, don’t you?”

“I _want_ to?” asked Kurapika. “Can he even leave the basin? And if he can, should he? Should we even let him?”

Leorio clenched his jaw, still staring down into the crook of his arm. Kurapika shot him an irritated glance, but didn’t force him to meet it.

“If Pairo can leave, think of how that might change the situation out here,” said Kurapika. “He isn’t a real person. Therefore, if he’s free to come and go, who’s to say the lake hasn’t sent more of its creations out into the world? People may doubt you or I are real, and what’s happening with me now because of my eyes will be nothing compared to what might happen when the Hunter Association finds out that the lake can create imitation humans and then suspects you and I might be some.”

“The imitations don’t have aura. We do.”

“But none of the other imitations have been Hunters.”

Leorio sighed and lowered his head to rub his eyes. “You’re really going to creep me out and make me question if I’m even real, aren’t you?”

“I’m not saying we aren’t real,” said Kurapika. “I mean that, even though Pairo has no aura, he still has Scarlet Eyes, and when they turn red, even though there’s no aura spike accompanying it, he still gets stronger. It can be argued that my clan didn’t know our eyes influenced our aura output, so, in all of my memories of Pairo, I never thought about how our eyes had an effect on aura. Even now, I associate our eyes changing with us being Kurta. Only in relation to myself do I actively consider the aura amplifying aspect of it. Since the lake couldn’t create what I didn’t know, and I never knowingly witnessed Pairo use his aura as a child, he only demonstrates the abilities I saw and understood when I knew him. On the other hand, you and I use Nen, we know each other’s abilities, and so, we’d naturally expect each other to be able to use Nen and to be perceivable as using it.”

“I thought you _weren’t_ trying to say we weren’t real.”

“I’m trying to anticipate what other people will say, because there’s going to be a lot of doubt cast on us if it turns out Pairo isn’t real and yet can leave the basin.”

Leorio stopped rubbing his eyes and let his reading glasses fall back, perched on the tip of his nose. He rested his head against a loosely balled fist, digging his knuckles into his forehead. His dubious tone when he spoke was backed up with a few lazy, punctuating gestures made by the fingers of his otherwise slack, free hand. 

“None of the local folklore mentions revenants emerging from the basin to rejoin their villages outside. The furthest they’ve ever been spotted has been near the passes. Hence, the whole belief the lake leads into the underworld. So, considering that, Pairo probably can’t leave.”

“Probably.”

“Why don’t you sound sure?”

“Because, I’m not sure.”

“Huh,” said Leorio. At last, he turned his head and cast Kurapika a long, condemning look. “Well, then. Did you come over here to broach a serious discussion about destroying every…” he hesitated trying to figure out which word to use, “...every _thing_ , including Pairo, that’s out here, before we go?”

Kurapika kept his eyes lowered. “Is it really worse than leaving him here by himself?”

“Uh, probably.”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“ _Because, I’m not sure_. Also, I don’t want to.”

“Which don’t you want to do more? Leave him behind or destroy him?”

“You should already know what I want.”

“You want to save everyone.”

“Yes.”

“But you can’t.”

“I know th—”

“Not even that kid you hid at the back of the sick ward who can’t physically follow you around, but who probably doesn’t have to, because maybe just knowing it’s there is haunting enough.”

Kurapika had given up on not mentioning Leorio’s visitor first. It was only fair if Leorio was going to accuse him of having no heart when it came to dealing with an imitation of Pairo, unlocked from recollections and thoughts Kurapika didn’t like to entertain, because he couldn’t change the reality. All the family and feelings of home and belonging he’d ever known would only exist preserved as how a precocious twelve-year-old had interpreted it all, and nothing more. 

Unlike Leorio, Kurapika could perceive the subtle shallowness of the new Pairo. A crucial complexity of character was missing. This other, recycled Pairo lacked the same glimmer of intelligence that Kurapika had never been able to keep up with. As children, Pairo had been so much quicker on the uptake. He’d solve problems before Kurapika knew what was coming, saving Kurapika multiple times from his own rash actions and poor decisions. At the same time, Pairo had been so quick and careful that no-one but Kurapika, who’d been yanked back from disaster by his collar more times than he could count, ever seemed to catch on. If they had, they’d have been far more suspicious when Kurapika elected Pairo to join him in leaving the village for his final test.

At the moment, it was so quiet in the office Kurapika could hear the faint sounds of that other Pairo, just outside, pacing, because when Kurapika had sent him out, he’d told him not to come back in until he and Leorio were finished talking. That this Pairo so willingly did as Kurapika asked and never truly questioned or challenged him was a point against him in a long list of errors adding up to Kurapika’s immense discomfort, distrust, and softly simmering anger towards him. 

Kurapika looked at the door and noticed it was open a crack. Pairo could hear them. He knew they were talking about what to do with him, and he wasn’t getting any say in the matter.

“It’s an abomination,” said Leorio after a long pause. Kurapika raised an eyebrow, not finding it very fair of Leorio to call his own visitor something like an abomination while refusing to see Pairo as anything other than a child to protect and care for.

“So is Pairo,” Kurapika pointed out. “You ought to be empathizing with me at this point. Now, you know what it’s like.”

“No,” said Leorio. “I don’t mean it’s an abomination like how you don’t see Pairo as real. What I mean is, I don’t know that person in the sick ward.”

Kurapika’s breath caught at the coldness in Leorio’s voice. Kurapika hated that the lake had sent him an imitation of Pairo, but no matter how callous he tried to be, he couldn’t imagine feeling as coldly towards Pairo as Leorio sounded towards his own visitor. Anger and hatred were complementary emotions, but they didn’t always go hand-in-hand, and so, it startled and annoyed Kurapika that Leorio’s voice carried a hint of contempt in it. Anger he could accept from Leorio without question. The dehumanizing coldness of Leorio’s hatred, however, felt almost offensive.

“Are you…do you mean that figuratively, or do you literally not know who that is?” asked Kurapika. At the same time, anger welled up inside him at what he could only perceive to be foolish, blatant denial coming from Leorio. Who did Leorio think he was kidding? The lake couldn’t create something Leorio didn’t know. 

“That person knows who you are,” snapped Kurapika before Leorio could speak. “They don’t stop asking about you. Don’t lie about it. I know you already tried to tell Pairo to keep it a secret, but I saw, and—”

Leorio hit the armrest with his palm so hard Kurapika felt the vibration in his own hand without Leorio touching him or his chair. “No, actually listen!” Leorio snapped. Kurapika shut his mouth and glared at Leorio in challenge, daring him to try any poor excuse he could come up with. 

“I understand what you think, what you and Pairo assumed. I don’t blame you,” said Leorio. He took a deep breath and gritted his teeth before meeting Kurapika’s glowering gaze. “How good a look did you get?”

“What?”

“I was just there, and that person told me you ran away. Did you get a good look at them before that?”

“I…” said Kurapika. His anger subsided somewhat due to embarrassment as he remembered he’d turned and left after barely a minute in the presence of Leorio’s visitor. “It was hard to see,” he admitted. “I didn’t look too closely.”

“Did you see their hands?”

“Maybe.”

“Hair?”

“It was light.”

“Stature?”

“They were laying down. It was a child.”

“Alright. Okay,” said Leorio, nodding. “Okay, well, my friend who died? Who you assumed it was?” Leorio swallowed and took another breath. “The only thing that matches is the dialect they speak to me in. The voice when they speak to Pairo doesn’t match, because my friend couldn’t speak the Hunter language. Instead, when that person speaks to Pairo in the Hunter language, they sound like…well, they sound like you. Pairo doesn’t notice because Pairo probably hasn’t listened to enough people speaking to know that the person in the sick ward speaks like you when you’re speaking the Hunter language.”

“I didn’t hear that…” muttered Kurapika, raising a hand to his chin but lowering it again a second later.

“People don’t always recognize their own voices played back to them. Plus, you didn’t exactly have a full conversation, did you? You ran away after a glimpse.”

Kurapika swallowed. In almost a whisper, he asked, “Is that supposed to be some version of me?”

“No,” said Leorio, making it loud and clear to leave no doubt. Kurapika let out a sigh of relief. “The hands, most of the withered body shape, the missing limbs you didn’t notice? Those are Gon.” 

Kurapika visibly contracted, clenching his teeth as he breathed in a quiet gasp and froze. He’d heard Gon had been at death’s door, but only after, when it’d been a bad memory Leorio and Killua recounted for him, rather than an anguish they’d been in the midst of experiencing.

“You never saw Gon when he was in the hospital,” said Leorio. “His condition was…horrific. A drained husk surviving on life support. I heard some people referring to it as a fate worse than death. In his condition, only a miracle could’ve saved him. Why do you think I’d make such an idiot of myself in front of everyone at the elections? Killua was confident Gon could be saved, but he couldn’t tell us how right away, and then there was the trouble of getting him to the hospital. So, as far as I knew, I thought I was watching Gon die, or something worse than death, whatever that means. I tried to do something about it, and yet, between all of us, between me and everyone working to try to save Gon, even with all the money and power between us, it still took a miracle.”

Kurapika frowned down at the floor. He tried to imagine how Gon must’ve looked. He tried to imagine what a “fate worse than death” would be like. In vain, he tried to recall how Leorio’s visitor had been, since it was apparently the closest approximation, but he still didn’t have any idea. Leorio had banadaged the ruined body too carefully, and Kurapika had run away at the sight of it too soon.

“Why would the lake send something like that?” asked Kurapika.

“Why does it send anything at all?” said Leorio with a shrug.

“But, I mean why this particular, mixed up…whatever it is that it sent you.”

“Maybe because, like you said, I need to save everyone, and I can’t. Although the details change, the precise people change, it’s all just the same general feeling of loss, of having lost, and the fear of losing again. It’s not specific to anyone.”

“I feel the same way about the people I care about, but the lake only sent Pairo to me.”

“You and I aren’t the same.” 

Kurapika scoffed. “How is it not the same, though?”

“Well, your life changed in an instant, and Pairo I guess encapsulates your devastation, at least enough that the lake identifies him as a significant person to you.” 

“But, your friend died, too. You said that was why you wanted to be a doctor.”

“That’s why I wanted to become a doctor, yes, but I’m a doctor now. It was only one friend, and with my friend, the problem was that the death was preventable, and yet, none of us had the power to prevent it. So, while I decided to fix what caused that death to happen, I felt very little personal responsibility for it happening. It wasn’t my fault. That was the point. How unfair it was motivated me.”

“And so, your visitor is just a conglomeration of everyone you care about?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s everyone you can’t save?”

“Seems so.”

The hand Kurapika had unconsciously brought to his chin fell. He stood and opened the door to tell Pairo to head back to the infirmary with the lukewarm glass of powdered drink he’d brought instead of tea. Pairo jumped to his feet in protest, swearing he hadn’t been eavesdropping, though he’d been suspiciously close to the door. Kurapika insisted he go. A short back and forth went on between them before Pairo gave up and trudged away. Once he was through the first hall door, Kurapika stepped back into the office. He was careful to leave the door open a crack, as it’d been.

“He’ll worry if he comes back and sees it shut all the way,” said Kurapika apologetically, noticing Leorio’s eyes flitting over where the door was open. “As long as he knows for sure where I am, he’s usually fine, now. The other day when you were taking a nap, he didn’t come in at all. He’s been better since you showed up. I think he trusts me more to stay put with you around.”

“That’s funny,” said Leorio with a small smile. “It usually feels like the opposite. You’re not known for sticking around when I show up. Wasn’t that the joke when we were with the Zodiacs? ‘The second Kurapika leaves a room, Leorio automatically appears asking where he is.’ Or better: ‘If you’re looking for Kurapika, but you run into Leorio, turn around, you’re going the wrong direction.’”

Kurapika laughed guiltily, admitting it was true while Leorio shook his head and fought back a widening grin. Kurapika sat down, but this time Leorio didn’t shuffle out of the way to give him room and establish distance.

“I’m sorry for treating you like that,” said Kurapika. “I thought it was something I had to do.”

“Yeah. You’ve apologized enough. I know. And anyway, the two of us being stuck in the basin together probably counts as some kind of payback for all the times you made me look like an idiot at meetings. Now, you can’t get rid of me.”

“I told you I’m not suffering because I’m forced to be around you. I didn’t avoid you so much in the past because I didn’t like being around you. You simply tend to get too involved, and there were things happening I didn’t want you to get mixed up in.”

“I’m pretty sure _this_ ,” said Leorio, motioning around the room and by extension the entire Solaris Basin, “maybe constitutes one of those things you probably didn’t want me to get mixed up in, right?”

“So you understand my reasoning.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it or comply with it.”

“Which is why I shouldn’t have involved you in the first place, as usual,” said Kurapika with a sigh of regret. “When you don’t know what I’m doing, it’s harder for you to volunteer yourself to ‘help’.”

“You don’t have to beat yourself up about getting me involved,” said Leorio. He paused without even registering Kurapika’s incredulous, raised brow, and then confessed, “Mizai had already told me you were heading here before you gave him permission to.”

Kurapika’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Did you really think I was able to collect piles of study material in a single day? Without anyone noticing?” asked Leorio. Kurapika frowned. He’d thought so, or at least, he hadn’t considered how impossible the timeframe he’d given Leorio had been. 

“Seriously?” asked Leorio when he saw the look on Kurapika’s face. He almost laughed. “Okay. Well, at first Mizai only asked me to help prepare a supplementary medical course to train someone he was sending out here. Later, he told me it was you. After that, he told me you’d decided to involve me, so, he had me teach you the course directly.”

“Why did he even tell you it was me in the first place?”

“Easy. Because literally every person I meet who seems to have a good connection with you, I tell them to keep an eye on you for me, to make sure you don’t get into trouble.”

“Everyone?”

“Absolutely. Even Pairo—or well, I tried, expect he went and told _me_ to keep an eye on _you_. Touché.”

Kurapika looked back to the door, but the hall outside was quiet and still. He was unsure if Pairo had really listened and gone away, or if he’d turned and come back on his own. He thought about checking just in case, but in the end, he stayed put. It didn’t really matter if Pairo were listening. Pairo knew not to interfere. This Pairo listened and obeyed, which was as convenient as it was frustrating to watch.

“Pairo and I wanted to be Hunters growing up,” said Kurapika, giving in to the inexplicable urge share with Leorio which had first arisen during the first phase of the Hunter Exam, when he’d told him about the Kurta Clan and the Scarlet Eyes. A slight sound of movement indicated Leorio had come to attention, even if he was too tactful to sit straight up and lean in. Without looking over, Kurapika continued speaking.

“We read a book about a Hunter and decided being a Hunter was the best and most noble profession in the world. It was at least more interesting than anything we could expect living our whole lives in our village. The problem was no-one was allowed to leave our village or interact with outsiders without permission. Our knowledge was kept limited, and we were told it was for our own safety. But, since I’d grown up safe in the village, I had no concept of the danger we were being protected from. I questioned everything about our lives, was always pushing boundaries, exploring, skipping out on chores and ignoring rules so that I could explore the forest. Pairo joined me, which kept me from wandering too far, but we were always dreaming of something bigger. The prospect of becoming Hunters gave us something specific to aspire towards.” 

Leorio tisked dryly under his breath. “You’d think they’d keep a book like that away from kids like you,” he said. Kurapika nodded.

“They would have, if they’d known we’d had it.”

“I’m assuming you didn’t steal it from the village library, then?”

“No. Pairo and I found an injured traveller and helped her. She had the book with her, and she gave it to us when she left to thank us.”

“How was that not immediately confiscated from you kids?”

“We hid it. No-one knew we helped her.”

“You didn’t get an adult?”

“No.”

“You said she was injured.”

“We were kids. We didn’t think about that part.”

“You were just thinking about how much troubled you’d be in if someone found out you helped a stranger.”

“No, not that, either, not really. I distinctly remember I was more worried someone would stop us from talking to her and learning about the outside world. The Elders would’ve told us to stay away from her and sent adults.”

Leorio tisked again, louder, in mild reproach at Kurapika’s childhood self. “That poor woman,” he said. “Stranded in the woods, injured, with only two selfish children to aid her.”

Kurapika rolled his eyes. “She was nice,” he said. “Anyway, we didn’t tell her we were Kurta, and I made double sure my eyes didn’t change around her. We told her our village was too far away, and that our Elders didn’t like outsiders. It wasn’t a lie. When she got better, she left, and she left us her book.”

“And then you and Pairo decided to become Hunters.” 

“Yes. But, before we could take the exam together, Pairo had to get better.” 

Leorio didn’t say anything, but Kurapika felt his uneasy silence more acutely than any sound or glance. A familiar, defiant feeling rose up inside him that he hadn’t felt in years. It wasn’t Leorio’s fault, not really, and it wouldn’t be fair to punish him for something he’d had nothing to do with.

“I left my village to find a doctor for him,” explained Kurapika as if he hadn’t noticed. “But, well, as you know, it’s hard to find a doctor who will see you if you aren’t rich or if it’s not an emergency. The ones who do listen usually ask you to bring the patient to them. They’re too busy to travel to a village over a day away in the forest. They have other patients. It’s not something they can give up to see one kid who’s already managing his condition and isn’t getting worse.”

Leorio nodded and thought for a minute before finally speaking. 

“They had a point,” he admitted. “Pairo’s case…it’s more than what a general doctor could cure, especially if what you were looking for was a level of physical wellness comparable to your own. Although it’s considered a best-case scenario, full recovery isn’t always the goal of treatment. Health isn’t a dichotomy of good and bad, well and unwell. It’s more a scale of better or worse, varying from person to person. If Pairo’s condition wasn’t worsening, and there was no way to reverse the damage already sustained, then, managing and monitoring it would’ve been the only strategy left. There are things you can’t go back and undo.”

Leorio meant well, but the old, defiant feeling in Kurapika’s chest swelled and shielded him from the pain of the same rejection multiple doctors had delivered and then strove to explain to him as a child. His optimism and hope had diminished with each fruitless encounter until only stubbornness had kept him going. People could be as generous and kind as Kurapika had hoped for in the outside world, with many refusing to accept a consultation fee once they understood his situation, but they still couldn’t help him. He’d started to prefer doctors who were cold and upfront about the futility of his quest to cure his friend, since leaving these doctors’ offices left him with a convenient target to direct all his pent-up frustration and anger towards. He could spit at their doors and call them names when he was outside, blaming them for not caring enough and not even trying. Meanwhile, the ones who did care and expressed concern for him and his friend were the worse, because when those types of doctors had told him there was virtually no chance of a full recovery, he had to delude himself that they were wrong, that they were stupid and didn’t know what they were talking about, even when every other doctor he spoke to, either colder or kinder, was telling him the exact same thing.

Leorio cleared his throat. “Do you mind telling me what happened to him?” he ventured. Kurapika had seen this response as child, as well. Leorio, obviously, was the sort of doctor who cared, who was kind. His Nen might have even made him more capable than the average doctor. Leorio, however, was too late.

“He fell down a cliff when we were kids,” said Kurapika. “After that, he was sick. His eyes got worse. He had to take medicine all the time, drops, to protect his eyes. I had a medical record with me to show to doctors when I left our village, but I don’t have it anymore.”

“I see,” said Leorio. He took a moment to piece together this information before asking Kurapika wordlessly if he wanted to hear the conclusion. Kurapika took a deep breath and nodded.

“You probably already know this,” said Leorio. “He’d have needed physical therapy to improve his mobility, maybe even additional surgeries. It’s hard to know exactly without x-rays.” The line between Kurapika’s brows deepened. At this part, the previous doctors had said they’d needed recent x-rays, and Kurapika hadn’t had any. “As for his vision, it’s blunt trauma induced degenerative blindness. Again, I can’t be sure without testing, but in this case, he might’ve suffered from angle recession glaucoma, which in short means elevated, chronic high pressure leading to irreversible damage of the optic nerve. If you can’t manage the pressure with medication alone, there are surgical options, but the impairment of one’s vision…” Leorio took a small breath, wincing because he knew Kurapika wouldn’t like the answer, “…that? That would be permanent.”

“I know,” said Kurapika. “It was never going to get better. He couldn’t have been a Hunter.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Leorio, his voice small, consoling but unable to lie outright. “Maybe you would’ve taken the exam without him, and then taught him Nen after? He could’ve used Nen to pass. There’s no rule against using Nen in the exam.”

“I never would’ve taken the exam without Pairo.”

“Without Nen or some other approach, he most likely couldn’t have passed. You’d have needed more than a normal doctor. You’d have needed a Nen-user, and there are very few of us in the healthcare profession worldwide. I’m not the only one who works for free, but there was little chance you’d have run into someone like me for years. You’d have had to travel the world first.”

“And I’d have done it. I never would’ve stopped searching.”

“True, but...were you planning to just leave him at home all that time?”

“He couldn’t have gone with me in his condition.”

“Which means, ironically, that rather than traveling the world with Pairo, you’d have been traveling the world _for_ Pairo. You’d have forfeited becoming a Hunter on the impossible notion that you two could become Hunters together, the exact same way, rather than giving up ‘fixing’ him first and finding another, better, solution.”

“You don’t understand,” snapped Kurapika, at the same time planting both feet on the ground as if he were going to leap up in indignation if Leorio pressed him further.

“I don’t understand that you treat Pairo like something you failed, some mistake you want to forget about, rather than as your best friend?” asked Leorio, far from intimidated by Kurapika’s show of temper. “I don’t understand that there’s a reason he’s here and not anyone else from your clan wandering the halls?”

Kurapika rounded on Leorio, hands clenched into fists. He’d expected Leorio to be scowling at him, his expression as critical as his words, but Leorio’s face was blank. Kurapika couldn’t even mistake the heaviness in his eyes for pity. He just looked tired.

“It was my responsibility to fix it,” said Kurapika. “It was my fault he got hurt.”

Leorio exhaled a soft puff of breath, a muted scoff at what Kurapika had to be implying. “It can’t have been your fault if you were _kids_ ,” he insisted, not budging even as Kurapika’s face darkened. “It had to have been an accident. Sometimes unfortunate accidents lead to things you can’t fix, consequences no-one deserves. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your job to fix it. The adults—”

“The adults were only good for was telling us to stay in the village and never leave, to never do anything at all. Their only solution for anything was to hide and hope the world would forget about us, but all they did was ensure we were isolated and alone, easy prey with nowhere to escape and no-one to help us. How could scared old people who prioritized the illusion of safety over freedom have had the presence of mind to know what had to be done to help Pairo? Seeing how the Chief Elder manipulated my final test to leave the village, he probably preferred that I felt responsible for Pairo, because it kept me in line. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything because Pairo couldn’t go with me. If I left, I couldn’t go far, because I always had to go back for Pairo.”

A lock of hair fell over Kurapika’s eyes, blocking them from view just as a surge of scarlet light flickered across them. Pairo, the real Pairo, had warned him about his temper. Kurapika had been mad at the elders about their rules since he was a child, though as a child he hadn’t understood precisely why he was so affected when no-one else seemed to argue or push back. It’d been impossible to know what had been so wrong about “staying safe” back then, not until all the extreme measures and rules had failed.

“That’s why it’s Pairo, then, I guess,” said Leorio, the implied but never directly asked question now answered. Kurapika lifted his chin enough to look Leorio in the eye, expecting him to avert his gaze. Leorio met Kurapika’s scarlet-tinted stare unflinchingly, locking Kurapika in place the longer he refused to look away.

“He was my best friend,” Kurapika choked out around the tightness in his throat.

“I know.”

“If he hadn’t been hurt saving me, he’d have been able to leave with me.”

“It’s impossible to know that. It’s impossible to know you would’ve even left your village as a kid if you hadn’t convinced yourself it was your own responsibility to find a doctor.”

“It’s impossible to know I wouldn’t have found a doctor, either, if things had been different,” said Kurapika. He lowered his already fading eyes, the surge of anger and aura moving aside as he admitted, “Your friend still would’ve died for the same reasons, though. You still would’ve become a Hunter on your own. Although it might’ve taken me years, maybe I could’ve found someone like you. Eventually.” 

Leorio paused at the wistful, unexpected, and to be honest completely impossible idea that, even if Kurapika hadn’t lost his clan and hadn’t taken the Hunter Exam the same year as Leorio, they still would’ve crossed paths somehow. Kurapika expected this to warm Leorio’s soft heart, but he couldn’t tell if Leorio saw past the endearingly optimistic belief in the connection between them to its true source. For Kurapika, meeting Leorio had never been a matter of chance. It was always supposed to have happened. He felt similarly about having met Gon and Killua, but the difference with Leorio was that, while Gon and Killua came and went, Kurapika felt a keener sense of absence whenever it was Leorio who wasn’t there. Things always seemed easier with Leorio around, even if superficially nothing else had changed.

“Well, like I said, it’s impossible to know,” said Leorio after a small, thoughtful smile that lightened the mood in the room. Kurapika relaxed, his eyes clouding over unevenly before returning to their usual, uneventful brown. “What we can do now is decide what to do next,” said Leorio. “In my case, I’m leaving my visitor behind in the sick ward. Call me a hypocrite, but I don’t feel too bad about it, considering it doesn’t even know its own name.” 

“It answered when I asked it, but I didn’t listen.”

“It always answers. It only says nonsense.”

“Did the lake really get it that bad?”

“Yes,” said Leorio with a sigh. “To the lake’s credit, though, when I arrived to the basin, my only thought was if you were okay. I guess it didn’t know what to do when I met you and my foremost concerns subsided.”

Kurapika made a face. “Are you joking?” he asked, embarrassed.

“Only a little joking,” Leorio assured him. “I really was worried. Frantic, even.”

“You didn’t look it,” muttered Kurapika.

“What?”

“When you showed up,” said Kurapika louder. “You didn’t look ‘frantic’.”

“Well, I already knew you were there. I knew you were alive. Hence, I was substantially calmed down by the time I entered your room to check on you.”

“Substantially calmed down?” asked Kurapika. “You were so composed when you walked in, I didn’t even think you were real.”

“Did you expect me to fall to my knees weeping with joy or something at the sight of you?”

“You’ve done exactly that. In front of the entire Hunter Association, no less.”

“Oh, sorry. I wasn’t aware I’d apparently set such high expectations,” said Leorio. He’d started laughing. “Next time you disappear somewhere and I don’t know if you’re dead or alive, I’ll make sure to bawl my eyes out the moment you appear in front of me, healthy and in one piece. I’ll cry on your shoulder in front of the entire Hunter Association, too, and you’ll have to decide if you want to look like a jerk pushing me away heartlessly, or if you want to also cry.”

“Never force me to respond to your tears in public. You’ll regret it.”

“I wouldn’t want you to feel left out. You’re just as important as Gon.”

“I don’t feel left out,” argued Kurapika. Leorio grinned at his stubborn insistence, and Kurapika made a short sound of frustration. “Whatever. You cried earlier. I guess you proved it already. Nevermind.”

Leorio nodded. “I did, didn’t I?”

“I think you’ve cried twice since you got here.”

Leorio furrowed his brow. “When the hell was the second time?”

“Probably alone somewhere, in the middle of the night, looking up at the sky. You seem the type.”

Now, Leorio bristled with indignation. “That’s slander,” he said. “Crying is an emotional response for me, not a recreational activity. I don’t just cry when I’m alone, _looking at the sky_. Where would I even see the sky anyway? You can barely just glimpse it around here, stuck in this station.”

Kurapika was laughing and shaking his head as he got up and dragged his chair back to the desk. Leorio kept on grumbling about how it wasn’t fair to just make embarrassing things up about people and then pretend to judge them for it. That was how kids behaved, and Pairo was the only child in the station. Kurapika needed to grow up.

“I’m going to finish this real quick,” said Kurapika, motioning to the books on the desk. “You were gone so long this afternoon, I’m almost done with an entire chapter. I’d like to finish it before it gets late. You can hang out with Pairo in the hall, or sit in the corner where you are. I don’t care which. It should take maybe half an hour.”

“I’m fine sitting,” said Leorio, leaning back and shutting his eyes. “Wake me when you’re done.”

“You still trust me to wake you up after yesterday?”

“I have no choice,” said Leorio, peeking across the room between half-closed eyes. “I trust you with my life. Might as well trust you not to let me wreck my back falling asleep on a chair for three hours.”

“And if you don’t wake up when I try to wake you?” asked Kurapika. “I actually tried after a half hour yesterday, but you just mumbled at me and rolled over. You didn’t want to wake up.”

“If that happens again, just wrap your chains around my feet and drag me after you wherever you’re going. I’ll come around eventually. Try to get your work done before I’m that deep asleep, though. Save yourself the trouble. I’m quite heavy.”

Kurapika laughed, but when Leorio shut his eyes again, his smile flickered, becoming fixed and forced as he promised he would get his work done promptly. He wiped the smile away as he looked down at the open book by his elbow. For a few minutes, he read over it, distracted, listening close to Leorio’s breathing and waiting for it to change, to deepen into the slumbering rumble he’d followed along so closely the afternoon before. 

A few minutes later, the crack in the door widened slightly, and Pairo looked in. He caught Kurapika’s eye with an inquiring look, but Kurapika shook his head. Pairo stepped away without a sound, pulling the door back with care not to wake Leorio.


	24. Inopportune Truth

A cold hand hit Leorio’s cheek lightly. After a pause, it hit him again. Leorio’s first thought as he stirred was that, if this was how Kurapika had tried to wake him up yesterday, then of course it hadn’t worked.

“Stop,” murmured Leorio, moving his face out of the way, but not enough to miss the next gentle tap. Kurapika’s hand followed after him, the taps against his cheek growing more persistent, as if Kurapika were determined to annoy him awake. When Leorio didn’t respond, the tapping ceased, and Kurapika started pushing against Leorio’s face with his fingers, rolling Leorio’s head from side to side. His fingertips left a chill, almost wet feeling against Leorio’s skin, which was worse than the tapping, and it wasn’t long before Leorio was awake and grabbing Kurapika’s wrist to jerk his hand away.

“Your hands are like ice,” grumbled Leorio, cracking his eyes open. Kurapika’s face was surprisingly close. Leorio swallowed dryly and pushed the hand further away, ideally along with Kurapika himself, but Kurapika only bent his arm back and didn’t budge.

“Are you really sure,” asked Kurapika, “that you were so worried about what might’ve happened to me, you confused the lake itself when you got here? The more I think about it, the weirder that sounds.”

Kurapika, of course, had been awake all this time, so, it was natural for him to bring up whatever they’d just been talking about. Leorio, meanwhile, had slept since then, and stared at Kurapika blankly, struggling to understand. 

“You were ‘frantic’?” Kurapika reminded him. “That was how you said it, right?” He spoke matter-of-factly, but drew out the last syllables with a slight, condescending uptick. Leorio sighed as he remembered.

“Don’t make fun of me for caring,” he complained, sitting up. Kurapika stepped back a little, but Leorio felt he was still too close. “There’s nothing wrong with worrying about a friend. Now, move.”

Kurapika stayed in place. Leorio realized he was holding Kurapika’s wrist so tightly he could feel a pulse. He let go. Kurapika straightened and rubbed where Leorio’s hand had been, giving him a wider berth now that he was free.

“But ‘frantic’ is very specific.” said Kurapika as he continued to rub his wrist thoughtfully. “It implies panic. There’s a connotation of losing yourself to your anxiety, of having no control.”

“Should I have said I was just ‘super worried’, then?” asked Leorio grumpily. 

“If you were frantic you were mad with worry, not just ‘super’ worried.”

“Did you wake me up to go over semantics? What’s the big deal if I were more one than the other?” said Leorio. “It’s just a word. If you want a perfect summation of my mental state on the way here, you’ll have to know I was furious, too. Don’t forget that. I was pissed.”

“I know.”

“Then, what are you laughing at me for?”

“Am I laughing?” asked Kurapika. His expression was the perfect image of confusion and mild concern over what he’d just been accused of. And yet, there was an underlying energy in the air around him, a mocking seriousness that Leorio picked up on and didn’t appreciate.

“You know you are, inside, deep down,” said Leorio with a huff. He got up at the same time and went to the desk to collect the previous Hunter’s logbook. Kurapika moved out of his way and stood by the computer.

“Didn’t you finish reading that yesterday?” asked Kurapika, frowning at the logbook. “Looking at that too long is like talking to Dr. Morro. It’ll make you paranoid.”

“I’m going to put it with the Hunter’s medical records,” said Leorio. He opened and shut the log without looking at it and held it at his side. “It doesn’t belong back in the library, since it’s hardly a scientifically relevant description of the basin or the lake. It’s just some nonsense, a record of his own psychosis, which makes it more of medical interest.” He motioned to the door. “C’mon. Pairo’s probably waiting.”

“I’ll catch up,” said Kurapika, turning half-heartedly back to the computer. Leorio yawned into his elbow before repeating himself.

“You should really come with me.”

It wasn’t a suggestion. Kurapika sighed and reached to turn off the monitor. He considered shutting the book laying open beside the keyboard, but simply set a smaller book on top of it to hold his place. When they entered the hall a minute later, they found Pairo wasn’t there. Kurapika hesitated in the doorway, looking up and down as if it were possible to miss something as obvious as a whole other person.

“I guess he’s really waiting like I asked him to,” muttered Kurapika. “I’d have thought he’d have snuck back over here.”

“Where did you tell him to wait?” asked Leorio, caught off guard by Kurapika’s surprise. Kurapika was a little late in answering him.

“He should be in the infirmary?”

Leorio nodded and led the way. Kurapika followed much slower. When they reached the infirmary, Pairo was nowhere to be found. Kurapika furrowed his brow as he stared at the neglected cup of powdered sports drink sitting on the table, flanked by two mugs of cold tea. The blueprints he’d been looking over the evening before were still there, but pushed aside to make room for the drinks. Leorio leaned over them, staring purposefully down while having no idea where to start. He’d almost suggested Kurapika check with his dowsing chain, before remembering Kurapika couldn’t track the visitors.

“What was he supposed to be waiting for? Us to get back?” asked Leorio. “Did you give him a timeframe for when to expect us?”

“I didn’t. I just said for him to leave us alone, that I was fine if I was with you. I said we’d head to the infirmary when we were done talking.”

“So, you didn’t tell him to come here exactly. You just told him this was where we were heading next.”

Kurapika shrugged, as unsure as Leorio. “To be honest,” he admitted, “I never would’ve expected him to wait here. He usually sneaks back and waits someplace where he can still see or hear me. He never just wanders off on his own.”

“You said he’s been more independent since I arrived, though.”

“Before, he wouldn’t even wait in the hall outside, is what I meant. Before, he’d have let himself into the room the moment I looked away. This is the first time he’s actually gone anywhere on his own, at least while I’ve been awake.”

Leorio was grim. “We should check if my visitor and Segundino are still around. Just in case.”

Without waiting for Leorio, Kurapika headed down the hall towards the sick ward. Leorio didn’t waste time wavering in the reception area summoning his courage. He entered the sick ward just behind Kurapika, arriving in time to see him hesitate and stop, not even making it halfway down the aisle. 

“I can’t hear it,” said Kurapika when Leorio was in earshot. “It should’ve heard the door open and started asking for you, right? Is it gone?”

“If the visitor’s gone, there’s nothing to worry about,” said Leorio, brushing past Kurapika and heading straight for bed without stopping. He didn’t realize that in putting on a brave front and rushing forward, he looked more vulnerable than ever, more desperate to get this over with as soon as possible, because it was too painful to drag out.

Leorio yanked the curtains back. Atop the pale sheets rested the same dark figure as before, but now it was silent and unmoving. Kurapika drew alongside Leorio, who stood frozen in place, his arms raised and stretched wide from parting the curtains. 

The visitor wasn’t breathing. At some point between Leorio’s quick check earlier and now, the patient had passed away. As for how long they’d remain dead, neither Leorio nor Kurapika could guess.

“Want me to—?” asked Kurapika, about to suggest nudging the person awake like he usually did with Segundino. He didn’t need to finish the question. Leorio was already stepping forward, hands open wide as he reached out and held the person’s shoulders, shaking them gently. 

Unlike with Segundino, the body remained still. Leorio’s grip tightened as he stopped shaking the shoulders, and Kurapika averted his eyes.

“Shit,” muttered Leorio, along with a stream of more words in his own language. Kurapika took him by the elbow and tugged, but Leorio shrugged him off. Kurapika retaliated by wrapping his entire upper body around Leorio’s arm and pulling him back with all his strength. He almost fell a second later when Leorio gave in. He let Kurapika drag him a fair distance, nearly to the door, without putting up a fight. When Kurapika finally let him go, he made no sign of rushing back to the visitor’s side. 

“It’s not real,” Kurapika had been reciting under his breath as he’d pulled Leorio away. Now, he looked Leorio in the eye and stated it firmly one more time. He added, “It isn’t even anyone. You said so yourself."

On a cognitive level, Leorio was perfectly aware that what he’d witnessed wasn’t real, but his automatic response of panic and fear had over-run whatever sensible part of him might have known better. Looking at Kurapika, the actual Kurapika, and not figments of him mixed in with every other nightmare Leorio had ever had, helped him to calm down. He stared Kurapika in the face for a long time, hands resting heavily on Kurapika’s shoulders in much the same way they’d being clinging to the visitor’s shoulders only moments ago. He took a few deep breaths, nodded, and finally let Kurapika go. As he moved on to the door, he ruffled Kurapika’s hair distractedly without looking. Kurapika pat down the tousled mess and made a face at him.

“Leorio?” a voice called as Leorio passed through the doorway into the hall. Leorio ignored it. Kurapika at his elbow hadn’t said a word, and Leorio wasn’t interested in confronting whatever had spoken. Behind him, Kurapika pulled the door all the way shut and double checked it before catching up with Leorio in the reception area.

“Are you going to be alright?” asked Kurapika after he’d pulled a chair over for Leorio and directed him to take a seat at the counter. Leorio nodded, but didn’t really seem to hear him.

“It’s not real,” said Kurapika again. “It came back to life, so, it’s not even dead.”

Leorio grunted.

“Once you’ve calmed down, we’ll go check Segundino.”

Leorio grunted again.

“Or, if we wait long enough, Segundino might show up on his own. I suppose there’s no hurry.”

Now, Kurapika was met with silence. Although he’d taken a seat beside Leorio, he got up and started walking in circles around the reception area. Leorio tried to speak, or at least considered saying something, anything, but nothing came out. He was clenching his teeth too hard to open his mouth. Kurapika sat down again in a chair across the room and stared at the floor. He was trying to be patient, but a few minutes later, he was up and walking around again.

“The visitor in the bed isn’t that much like Gon,” said Kurapika. “Maybe the condition is similar to Gon’s, but that’s all.”

Leorio look over, baffled as to why Kurapika was bringing up the one thing anyone else would’ve been too considerate to discuss immediately after what had just happened.

“Bearing in mind what you said, that it’s a mix of different influences….” Here Kurapika set a hand on his chin. “I feel like for the most part, it’s mostly me, no? After a second look, this time knowing it’s not your dead friend, I feel like it’s mostly me, but a version of me suffering the worst way you’ve ever seen someone suffer. Correct?”

Leorio stared at him.

“It makes sense, if you were truly ‘frantic’, I suppose.”

“Hm,” grunted Leorio.

“I can presume your concern for my well-being extends so far the lake can single it out and hurt you with it,” said Kurapika, like he was a detective in a film sorting out the evidence he’d collected so far and hypothesizing about what that evidence could signify. Leorio, not surprised but nevertheless dismayed at this conclusion, only frowned deeper and didn’t answer.

“That’s a lot,” Kurapika went on, too cool and calm considering what he was saying. “All your lectures about how you would’ve come out here no matter what…I feel like I’m actually hearing them, in a way. Before, it felt like that was what you always said, what I could always expect you to say, and I could ignore it. In retrospect, I see I shouldn’t have treated it so lightly.”

At last, Kurapika heard rustling from behind the counter of the reception desk. “You’re seriously just now realizing that I mean what I fucking say?” asked Leorio. He’d discovered within the immensity of his total disbelief the strength to speak, to do more than stare, shock-still, offering only tired, monosyllabic responses. He took a deep breath and asked, “Are you fucking joking?”

“It’s true that you always talk that way. It’s easy to treat it as you being you.”

“I am being me. That’s me,” said Leorio. “I care about you and your well-being.” 

“I know. I can tell.”

“Can you?” asked Leorio. “You’re the one saying you’ve only just now realized how much I really care, like this is all somehow news to you. I always thought you were smart, though, so for me, right now, I’m struggling to accept how dense you’ve had to have been if you didn’t realize it sooner.”

“I realized it. It’s just the real extent that’s struck me now.”

“The extent?” asked Leorio, lifting a hand weakly and holding it out in a beseeching manner. “Was there a question of scale leaving you in doubt? Am I perhaps so unreliable in my amount of care for others that you were trying to calculate it this whole time? Did you lack some kind of necessary assurance that you mattered, that you _really_ mattered, and it threw you into a state of uncertainty you’re only just now coming out of?” Leorio’s open hand curled into a fist. “Well, in that case, let me assure you, _I care_. I care about you so much it makes me physically ill to imagine you in trouble. You’re important. I’ve always wanted everything to get better for you. I feel bad when it doesn’t.”

“And you feel bad, now, I suppose?”

“A little, yes.”

Kurapika stopped pacing and leaned in. “Only a little?”

Leorio pulled his curled fist back to his side, physically diminishing overall as he retreated from the brief, assertive stance he’d held. “We’re here together,” he said simply. “If we’re together, at least it affects me as well as you. In the end, if I’m going to suffer anyway, I prefer this.”

Kurapika crossed his arms and eyed Leorio critically. “Isn’t that too one-sided? Don’t you hate feeling like a martyr?”

“It’s not one-sided.”

Kurapika scoffed, looking down at himself and then back at Leorio. “How?”

“Because, if it were one-sided, then that means there’s no guarantee you’d ever do the same, and I simply don’t believe that’s the case.”

Kurapika opened his mouth to contradict this, but Leorio spoke louder over him. “You’ll insult me and yourself by insinuating otherwise. _Please_. You’re not that heartless, and I’m not delusional.” Kurapika snapped his mouth shut and Leorio nodded swiftly and sternly in approval before continuing. “As for me being a martyr,” he said. “To what cause am I martyring myself, exactly? My job has never been to step in and save you from the messes you get into, or else I wouldn’t have stood with you against the Phantom Troupe. I wouldn’t have put you in contact with the Zodiacs. I wouldn’t have done whatever I could to help you get into some of the worst messes you’ve ever been in in the first place. To be honest, it’s funny how now you’re acting like me showing up means the party’s over, and yet, I’ve never tried to stop you, not once. I only ever wanted you to include me, to be a part of whatever happens, good or bad. I’ve never asked you to change what you’re doing. I’ve only ever asked you to give me your damn email. So, there.”

Kurapika opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He took in a quick breath and tried again, but couldn't say a word. Making a face, he resumed his pacing, picking up speed as he went around the room. Leorio didn’t watch him. He was too tired. He’d said too much to let himself entertain the thought of what it was Kurapika was struggling to say after hearing it all. The longer Kurapika remained silent, the longer Leorio wouldn’t have to answer to him, and for the moment, that was all right. 

Leorio didn’t know how long it was before Kurapika spoke up again. For the first few seconds, he wasn’t even listening.

“…considering I thought you weren’t real when you showed up,” Kurapika was saying. “It means I fully expected the lake to send you as much as Pairo.”

“Huh?” asked Leorio in a daze. He glanced over at Kurapika, looking straight through him. “As much as...what? Pairo?”

Kurapika hadn’t noticed Leorio not listening to him. “Dr. Morro always speaks of his visitors in plural, so, more than one coming for me wouldn’t have been unprecedented,” he explained. “My automatic assumption that you couldn't be real demonstrated that I fully expected the lake to delve into my mind and find you, to bring you out, as well, or at least a version of you. When I saw you enter my room, I instantly knew that, after Pairo, you were the very last and yet the only person I wanted to see. It made perfect sense to send you.”

“Why would it?” asked Leorio, uncomfortable with the conclusion being drawn as far as he understood it. “I’m not the same as Pairo to you. I don’t have that sort of traumatic significance. We don’t have that kind of past.”

“Maybe because you’re a doctor I could’ve met to save him.”

At this, Leorio squeezed his eyes shut and turned away. “Okay. So. Being around me secretly torments you...because I’m a doctor?” he asked through nearly pursed lips. He rested his aching head in his hand. “Are you serious? Is that what the hell you mean?”

“No.”

“Then, what is it about me that made you fully expect the lake to torment you with my presence? What did I do? How am I…” Leorio trailed off, thinking about his own visitor. He hadn’t forgotten the uncontrollable panic of moments ago, or the shaky feeling lingering in his chest. It’d been an illusion, yes, but it’d been real enough for long enough to wound him. 

Leorio swallowed and repeated in a quieter voice, “What did I do?”

Kurapika was no longer pacing. “Love,” he said, his voice painfully casual again, as if the matter had next to nothing to do with him, despite having absolutely everything to do with him. “It gets in the way.”

For a long moment, Leorio was incapable of forming a single, conscious thought beyond the question already on his lips. 

“Wait, what? What does that mean?”

“I’d softened the blow and call this just a theory, but to be honest, it’s the only likely conclusion I can draw based on our past behavior. Haven’t you realized it yourself?”

Leorio’s stared hard at the tiled floor under Kurapika’s now idle feet. He was caught to ever-changing degrees between insisting Kurapika was mistaken, demanding Kurapika stop messing with him, and a few not insignificant pangs of guilt compelling him to silently ruminate over whatever role he’d inadvertently played in making his appearance at the station feel as predictable and painful as Pairo’s for Kurapika. It hurt to discover he’d hurt Kurapika, and somehow fixing all of that was his highest priority. He ordered himself to come up with some solution, but he was met with only mental white noise.

“It’s a logical explanation,” said Kurapika while Leorio was still too dumbstruck to speak. “This has always made it difficult for me to do what I want around you. I can’t help but take your feelings into account. I feel responsible for them."

It was almost comically cruel for Kurapika to add in an “always”. Leorio agonized over the word choice and the added sense of perpetuity it gave. He forced himself to speak only because he didn’t want to hear Kurapika draw any worse conclusions.

“I’m not…it’s not,” said Leorio. He didn’t know how to proceed from here. He’d lie if he had to. All he wanted to do was say the one correct thing that wouldn’t give Kurapika an excuse to drop such a heavy burden onto his shoulders and then leave him stranded, unable to get a word in. “We’re all friends,” insisted Leorio, thinking of Gon, Killua, and Kurapika as a whole, but neglecting to clarify.

“We are,” said Kurapika sagely. The infuriating ease and detachment, as if he were discussing a third person not in the room, hadn’t dissipated. “I’ve gone so far as to tell myself all of this was me imagining things on my own, that I was reading too much into you just being yourself. Every excuse you could imagine, I’ve used it. Because we’re all friends. It’s hard, however, when you’re very persistent because you have no clue.”

“No,” said Leorio. He was shaking his head, but at what, he couldn’t say exactly. Kurapika sat down beside him again. Leorio recoiled a little, though not without an obvious wince of guilt when he realized his newfound timidness only made his case worse.

“The worst thing isn’t the burden of responsibility,” said Kurapika. Leorio set his mouth in a thin line, as if every word leaving Kurapika’s mouth made him want to throw up. “The worst thing is how hard it is not being able to return someone’s feelings--or well, it’s hard to deliberately not do so. For the most part, I’ve been successful. When I’m at a low point, however, I sometimes entertain the thought, and for a while it becomes…” Kurapila almost said “difficult” but found something better, as in, something significantly worse, “... _unbearable_ to see you or hear your voice. I then make the logical decision to hold back and wait for those feelings to pass.”

“Huh. Logical?” asked Leorio as if waking up from a dream. “The logical decision?” he echoed himself. Kurapika nodded both times. “Well,” said Leorio. “If you’re so logical, why’d you give Mizai permission to involve me at all? That’s not logical. Sanctioning my involvement meant it was only a matter of time before I headed out here. You would’ve known that. You definitely would’ve known that.”

At last, there was a crack in Kurapika’s facade, though this might’ve been as calculated as everything else about him so far. “It was a low point,” he admitted softly. 

Though Leorio had resented Kurapika’s cool, distant way of speaking so far, it was Kurapika’s softer voice that made him want to grab Kurapika by the shoulders and startle the truth out of him, the actual truth, the reason why he was saying anything and accusing Leorio of everything. There had to be a reason; Kurapika never did anything without a reason. When he acted rashly, there was always a blatant trigger, but Leorio couldn’t for the life of him imagine what could have possibly triggered the conversation they were having now. If it’d truly been like Kurapika had said, that getting a second look at Leorio’s visitor had gotten him thinking, they’d have had this conversation in the hallway, or worse, the sick ward itself. Tactfully waiting whole minutes for Leorio to calm down and have a seat was too generous for Kurapika at his most impulsive.

“I wanted to see you before I left,” Kurapika was saying after Leorio didn’t respond, “in case later I couldn’t, not for a long time. That’s why I involved you at the last minute.” 

This part sounded true at least. It gave Leorio a little more perspective. Calculated or not, he trusted Kurapika not to lie about something so sensitive. If anything, he was telling Leorio an inopportune truth, brought up only now for...what? Why? 

“Like I said,” concluded Kurapika as if answering Leorio’s thoughts. “You’re the first and last person I ever want to see, even if you don’t realize you’re an idiot who’s in love with me and doesn’t know what to call it.”

“I’m not…argh!” snapped Leorio, jumping to his feet and moving away from Kurapika. It was too warm sitting so close. It was too _close_ sitting so close. “Stop saying it like that. You’re saying something...you’re telling me it’s as bad as Pairo for you when I’m around. Right? This is the point your making? I’m sorry, but that can’t be true. It’s too hard on me, for one, and plus, it’s not like you to see things like that.”

“You’re saying I’m wrong?”

“No. But, you’ve always avoided me to protect _me_ , not to protect yourself. It sounds ridiculous hearing you say the opposite.”

“Ridiculous?” asked Kurapika. A strange warmth suffused his tone for an instant, reassuring Leorio even as the words leaving Kurapika’s mouth were still mostly nothing Leorio wanted to hear. “You think I’m kidding?” 

“I hope not. It’s an incredibly unfair joke if you are.”

“I’m absolutely serious.”

“You don’t sound like you’re that serious.”

Kurapika smiled softly. The genuine warmth was gone as quickly as it had arisen, drawing more attention in its abrupt absence than had during its brief appearance. Kurapika was more acutely aware of his emotions than he should’ve been, stifling the one glimpse of honest feeling that’d broken through and replacing it with the calculated softness Leorio despised.

“I suppose that’s a relief,” said Kurapika. “If what I’m saying isn’t so serious to you, if you think it’s ridiculous and not true, then, you’ll be able to leave the station with Dr. Morro and let me disappear somewhere else. I worried you wouldn’t be able to leave me by myself, but I feel better knowing you find this ridiculous.”

Hearing this, Leorio wanted to laugh. “Oh, sorry?” he asked. “So, if I’m not taking this seriously and tearfully accepting that I’m in love with you and it that makes your life so hard, then I can just fuck off, you’ll take care of yourself? Are you serious?”

“It’s not a condition I’m giving you,” said Kurapika. “You can trust me to take care of myself, like you trust Gon and Killua to take care of themselves. You leave with Dr. Morro, which is your professional responsibility, and let me go. Return to your research, helping others. Isn’t that a more valuable use of your time than someone you know can already take care of themselves?”

Leorio lifted a finger high to offer a rebuttal, but anything he could’ve said that made sense slipped from his mind, replaced with nothing but denials and refusals. He couldn’t explain himself. He’d have to know where he stood, what he thought, how to deal with such accusations, before he could ever hope to clarify anything. After deliberating for several seconds, he clamped his mouth shut and did an about face, storming from the room with muttered excuses about Morro, needing air, looking for Pairo—anything that came to mind as a good enough reason to leave. 

“Where are you going?” asked Kurapika as Leorio reached the door. Leorio hadn’t expected him to speak, and jolted to a halt. He didn’t bother with more excuses.

“Somewhere I can think,” said Leorio, refusing to look at Kurapika. “You clearly came to this prepared, and I didn’t. If I keep arguing, you’ll win. This is a pause.”

“Don’t you think—”

“Stop it. Stop arguing. I’m leaving."

Kurapika stared after Leorio as he passed through the door into the hall, but didn’t follow. At the stairwell, Leorio had to enter the code to open a door three times before he got it right, swearing after the first mistake and complaining to himself about why he didn’t have his damn pass yet to get around. It was probably in the damn basement with Costu, frozen into his clothes. What a pain. Everything in the whole damn station was a pain.

 

* * *

 

As there wasn’t anywhere to go or anywhere he belonged outside the infirmary, Leorio returned to the office he and Kurapika had just left. He tidied up the area around the desk, preferring to feel productive rather than throwing a full-blown tantrum and breaking chairs. He carried Kurapika’s books and materials to the library and sorted them onto their shelves. More neglected books were lying around on tables and chairs, and he put these away next. Asserting order over the chaos allowed him to feel a tiny bit better and in control, although it couldn’t distract him from what remained foremost on his mind and repeated in a loop more incessant than the prying of the lake at night.

As he emerged from the shelves, Leorio’s eyes fell on a row of reading niches set along the back wall. Though only a little taller than the average office cubicle, they offered at least an illusion of partial privacy. He sat at one of the small, inclined desks and hunched over with his arms crossed, resting his head. He breathed deeply and tried to clear his mind, deciding that if he fell asleep right there, despite the pain in his back and shoulders upon waking, he wouldn’t care. 

A hollow tone sounded from far away. Leorio startled to attention and sat up, listening closer. The tone repeated. Leorio emerged from the reading niche and stumbled in the direction of the sound. There was a small office with three workstations at the back of the library. He hit the light as he entered, but it didn’t come on. Relying on only the dim glow from the main room, he stepped inside. The tone was loudest at a workstation along the wall. Two pinpricks of orange and green light flickered each time it sounded, the incoming call notifications on a station intercom phone.

Cautiously, Leorio picked up the receiver, not pleased to speak with any of the prospective callers, but knowing it was most likely going to be Dr. Morro. It was Leorio’s duty as a medical officer to attend to the man if there’d been an emergency in the control room.

“You’re finally alone, thank god. I thought you’d never get away from that kid.”

It took Leorio a second to realize Dr. Morro didn’t mean Pairo. He would’ve called earlier if he’d been hoping for Leorio and Kurapika to get away from Pairo.

“That ‘kid’ is twenty-four years old,” said Leorio, always put off by the fact that people treated him as if he were much older than Kurapika because he was so much taller. “What the hell do you want? Are you bleeding or dying? Are all your appendages there and accounted for?”

“Don’t worry about that, and listen,” said Dr. Morro. “I’m calling to warn you. I don’t have much time until they’re back—”

“Until who’s back?” Leorio tried to ask, but Dr. Morro kept speaking.

“—but I’ve seen it. They’re coming for you. They want you out of the way before we can destroy the source. They won’t listen to me. They said you have to be dealt with, that you won’t help us.”

Leorio, at first alarmed to hear someone was coming for him, sighed at the mention of “destroying the source”. Presumably, this meant the source of the visitors. 

“Oh,” he said. “At last, this. I guess it’s my turn. Great timing.” 

Dr. Morro was annoyed and didn’t understand. “It’s not happening in turns,” he said. “This warning only pertains to you.”

Leorio was already shaking his head. “The Hunter who ran away from here told the Association you and Costu were planning to ‘destroy the source’, too, so I’ve heard all about it,” he said. “After what I saw outside, I see now why me poking around made you so nervous. None of us at headquarters dreamed you’d get your hands on explosives. So, tell me, do you really think you can blow up an entire lake? Are you an idiot?”

“I don’t want to blow up the lake,” growled Dr. Morro. “I wasn’t trying to blow up the lake. It was the source we were after, _the source_.”

“Do you mean the caverns that were along the cliff-face before you blew it up?” asked Leorio. “That archaeological site Dr. Febiu found?”

Dr. Morro hesitated. Leorio could almost hear the man’s mind racing. He didn’t know Dr. Morro’s face, but he imagined his eyes were wide. All his protracted silence did was prove Leorio had guessed correctly.

Despite this, when Dr. Morro came back, his voice was eerily calm.

“That’s where the first visitors were, yes,” admitted Dr. Morro. “That’s where they were coming from back then. We thought the lake had taken control of their bodies like puppets. We didn’t realize it’d sculpted them from within our own minds instead—not until they started coming back after the explosion. Even worse, they found the station. They realized they could come inside. Then they found us, and they realized they could get inside us. You can feel them, walking around your head like a little room, in and out of your sleep, there to meet you when you wake up.”

Leorio made a dismissive sound so Dr. Morro would know he was rolling his eyes at him. “Yes, well, you didn’t succeed in blowing up the entire cavern,” said Leorio. “Unlike Kurapika, I was approved to access the previous Hunter’s medical files, which means I arrived knowing what to look for. What’s left of the bodies is still down there. I saw. It looks like you were too afraid. You didn’t set the explosives deep enough. All you did was cave in the entrance.”

A tired, frustrated sigh escaped Dr. Morro. “The source can still be destroyed,” he insisted. “That was only our first try.”

“Are you sure?” ask Leorio. “You planning to run down there and try to blow it all up again? Or do you need me to help you, because Kurapika already turned you down? You were hoping to catch me when I was alone, right? After an argument, you’d try your luck, convince me to blow up half the basin with you, because Kurapika and Pairo wouldn’t. Because whoever’s in the control room with you won’t. Because no-one but you is crazy enough to believe you can intimidate a lake.”

Dr. Morro’s voice grew hard with disdain. “I don’t need your help,” he said. “I’m not alone, Dr. Paladiknight.”

“So I’ve read,” said Leorio. “If you’ve been trying to scare me with blood on the floor and ominous words thinking it’ll help to get me on your side, too bad. I’m not afraid of you, or the lake, or anything out here.”

“You Hunters aren’t ever afraid, are you?” sneered Dr. Morro. “Not until the last minute. Not until it’s too late. You never believe you’re truly in any danger until it’s got you by the throat.”

There was a short pause before Leorio realized he’d have to break it himself. “Is that it?” he asked, sounding bored. “Is that all you have to say?”

“Me warning you is a privilege I’ve granted you, but if you’re not going to listen or take this seriously, I’ll handle it myself,” said Dr. Morro. He wanted to say more, but there was a metallic scraping sound behind him and someone calling his name. At almost the exact same instant, he ended the call. Leorio was left frowning into the receiver, not appreciating Dr. Morro’s frustrating habit of letting their calls end so abruptly. With a sigh, he dropped the receiver back into place and returned to the reading niche he’d been dozing off in earlier. He thought about sending out an En pulse, but didn’t. An En pulse wouldn’t just tell him where Kurapika was; it’d give Kurapika a good hint of where to find Leorio, too, and Leorio wasn’t ready for Kurapika to come find him.

Fifteen minutes later, Leorio caved and sent out the En pulse anyway. He found Dr. Morro in the control room and Kurapika walking down a dormitory hallway, probably searching for Pairo. As soon as Kurapika sensed Leorio’s En, his presence flickered out of existence. Leorio could only assume he’d gone into a state of Zetsu. On the bright side, it meant he wanted Leorio to leave him alone and wasn’t going to start looking for Leorio any time soon.

Leorio put his head down on the desk again and went back to organizing his thoughts. Another fifteen minutes passed. Then, an entire hour. Now and again, he’d feel ready to get up at last and go find Kurapika, but a second later, the feeling would pass, and he’d hunch back down. This went on for some time with Leorio never making a final, determined decision about what to do except wait.

At a quarter to ten, right as Leorio was gearing up to leave and look for Kurapika yet again, the lights in the station flickered and dimmed. With a hollow snap, the lights went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is posted early because honestly the only thing keeping me would've just been my own cowardice. Confession scenes are _the worst_ , even when they aren't especially romantic
> 
> lmao but yeah I've re-written this chapter quite a few times. Those vicarious feelings of vulnerability and embarrassment always do a number on me


	25. The Source

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Here is your warning that this is a flashback scene. I wasn't lying about piling those up on the end. Don't worry, though, [as far as I'm aware] this is the last one.

The chair knocked hard against the desk as Kurapika threw himself into it. His dull eyes stared forward without blinking. He didn’t move the chair back up to where it had been earlier but sat limply, unwilling to put forth another ounce of effort. Dr. Morro peered over at him from his own workstation, but gave Kurapika a minute to catch his breath and collect his thoughts before following up on what he’d observed on the storeroom cameras.

“What did you do with Costu in the end?”

“In the freezer, like we decided.”

“Did you wrap him up before you left him? He could stick.”

“I tucked a plastic sheet around him and set him on some pallets.”

“But you didn’t wrap him up?”

Kurapika rolled his head back with a groan. “Is it a big deal?” he asked. “Why bother? He’s the only thing in there. I moved everything else out.”

“Wrapping him reduces contamination. It makes him easier to move.”

“Oh? And where are we moving him after?” asked Kurapika. He shot Dr. Morro a disgusted look, unable to explain what it was about the man’s barely concealed sentimentality for the dead Dr. Costu that irritated him so much. “I don’t plan on moving him anywhere, so, that’d be up to you. I didn’t clean him or anything, either, so, as far as that goes, he’s already contaminated. What does it matter? He doesn’t have to be food safe. Like I said. He’s the only thing in there.”

“It’s the decent thing to do, to wrap a body. You just threw him in there lazily, less care than if he were a piece of meat.”

“Go do it yourself. I won’t get in your way.”

Dr. Morro gritted his teeth. Kurapika hadn’t looked at him once since entering the control room. “Have you even seen a dead body before?” demanded Dr. Morro. “Do you have any idea how to handle one with even a shred of respect?” 

Kurapika stared forward with no expression. “I’ve seen more people die and handled more bodies than you have, I’m sure,” he said. “I’m not as sensitive about it as you are.”

“Even if you’ve handled a million bodies before now: you _knew_ him. He saved your life.”

“I don’t owe him for doing his job.” 

“He was our colleague.”

“And?” asked Kurapika. “He wasn’t thinking about us, was he, or what great colleagues we all were, when he decided to kill himself. It didn’t matter to him that we’d have to deal with his remains ourselves afterwards. He simply died where and how as he wanted, and he let his corpse be our problem.”

“No. Even from a Hunter that’s too much. A dead body doesn’t cease to be a person, and any decent human being ought to know that. You can’t be human if you can treat a dead person, a person you even knew, like it’s not even Costu anymore.”

Kurapika clenched his teeth. “Can’t be human?” he muttered with an irony Dr. Morro didn’t understand. All he heard were empty, ominous words, and he hated Kurapika for seemingly trying to play on a person’s already frayed nerves to test them. Dr. Morro might’ve been paranoid, but it was the lake he distrusted, not an arrogant Hunter with no respect for the dead.

“How’s the stranger?” asked Dr. Morro. Segundino hadn’t emerged from the freezer since Kurapika had put Dr. Costu inside.

“Which?” asked Kurapika. “Dr. Costu’s brother, or…the child?”

“The brother. That little kid you found is still upstairs. Just a minute ago, he knocked the closet door down. He’s climbing over the barricade.”

Kurapika’s eyes widened. “Wai-what?” he sputtered, hopping to his feet and startling Dr. Morro. He rushed to Dr. Morro’s side, and Dr. Morro indicated a corner square in the grid of camera feeds on his screen. Kurapika squinted down at it and, after half a second, swore.

“It wasn’t even ten minutes,” he whispered, aghast. “I just left.”

“You going to dig a pit next to throw him down? See if that works?”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe chuck him off a cliff into the lake? That probably won’t do any good, considering where it came from, but hey, you might feel better.”

“I said shut up,” snapped Kurapika. He yanked the back of Dr. Morro’s chair around so he was facing Dr. Morro with his fist drawn back. “Another word, and I’ll break your nose.”

Dr. Morro grinned back at him, unafraid and amused that the aloof Kurapika could lose his cool. Kurapika found such smugness awfully bold of Dr. Morro, considering there was no doctor to help him if he prompted Kurapika to deliver on his threat.

“I can’t believe you give more of a damn about that thing than Costu,” jeered Dr. Morro. “If you go the same way as Costu after this, I’m not dragging you downstairs to join him. You don’t deserve it. Good riddance.”

Kurapika let go of the chair with a final shove and lowered his fist. “I’m not like Dr. Costu,” he said. “I’ll be fine. When you die, I’ll toss you into storage next to him. I’ll even wrap you in plastic, if it’s so important to you. It’s the same to me. I won’t care. Neither will you. You’ll be dead.”

“Generous.”

“It’s not generous. It’s what has to be done anyway.”

Dr. Morro grunted and scooted his chair a little further from Kurapika before swiveling around to face the monitors. Kurapika glanced over the familiar line of coolers in the storeroom in time to see a thin, familiar figure move past.

“I guess it doesn’t freeze,” said Kurapika.

“And the other one’s on its way,” said Dr. Morro, pointing to Pairo, who’d just entered the infirmary and was heading straight for the patient room Kurapika had used while under Dr. Costu’s care. “Making the rounds.”

Kurapika turned his face away before he got a good look. He pulled out another, closer chair and took a seat.

“Where’s yours, then?” asked Kurapika. “Dr. Costu had his brother. I’ve got…this child. Who are you hiding? Where?”

“I’m not hiding anyone,” said Dr. Morro. “Mine have always been outside. Costu saw them. We were going to let you in on it if you seemed reliable, once the cameras were up, once it was possible to see them without heading all the way out there.”

“All the way out there? To where?”

“The crypt.”

Kurapika’s brows rose at such an ominous sounding location. He chewed his chapped lower lip pensively, tasting the bright, metallic lines where the skin had cracked. Instead of soothing the pain, his lip only felt colder and dryer when the air touched it again. He sighed and shook his head, his hair falling into his eyes and reminding him he’d have to trim it back later, before it became a hindrance in combat. There was no knowing what the visitors would be capable of over time.

“There’s…a _crypt_ out here?” asked Kurapika finally. “Why the hell is there a crypt? Where is it?”

“A crypt is just what we call it,” said Dr. Morro. “Costu and I. It has a superficial similarity to those caves they used to use as crypts in the countryside.”

Kurapika didn’t know whatever countryside caves Dr. Morro was referring to, but he did recognize what the superficial similarity had to be. “Is it where you buried your team?” he asked. Dr. Morro shook his head. “Or is it where your team died?” Dr. Morro nodded. “You left them there?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Costu told me he didn’t know a lot about that. He said you were hallucinating.”

“He was lying. He knew they were there. He brought the other Hunter to see them.”

“He told me he never left the station.”

“He was lying about that, too. Or well, he could leave if someone else were with him. He never went out by himself. He’d have left with you, if you’d proven reliable.”

“Reliable for what?”

“Destroying the source.”

“What’s that?”

“We don’t know. We haven’t found it. We’re still trying.”

“Wouldn’t it be the lake itself?”

“The lake might just be the body, the limbs. Maybe there’s a brain, or a production center, some vital point. Something has to be in control. Everything here has to originate from somewhere.”

“So you want to somehow ‘kill’ the lake,” said Kurapika, unimpressed. “You think that’s actually possible?” He paused to wet his lip again, then froze. His eyes widened slightly at the realization. 

“It was you, then, wasn’t it?” he asked. “You blew up the cliffside? You lied and said it was a mushroom or something, but it was you and Dr. Costu all along?”

Dr. Morro nodded. “It was our first guess, though a long shot, as to where the source might be,” he said. “Back then, the only visitors were the ones who’d died in the caverns under the cliff. We naturally assumed they’d originated from there. In fact, our first assumption was that the lake was animating their corpses. We thought if we destroyed them, along with the ‘crypt’, it would stop.”

Kurapika clenched his fists in his lap, thinking of the lies he’d fallen for and the ones he’d doubted from the start. He felt like a fool. He’d underestimated Dr. Morro and Dr. Costu, even as he’d suspected and distrusted them every step of the way. All he’d assumed had been wrong. What he’d thought had been an accurate and logical assessment of his situation had been nothing but assumptions he’d jumped to without questioning them.

“What exactly happened to your team?” asked Kurapika.

“What do you think? An accident.”

“What kind of accident?”

“They were swallowed up by the lake and pulled under. For all intents, they drowned.”

“Did you see them die? Was it confirmed?”

“They couldn’t have survived for so long out in the basin. Costu, Toquo, and I agreed.”

“And did Toquo really leave after that? Or was that another lie Dr. Costu told me?”

“Toquo left,” said Dr. Morro. “She went to try and coordinate a recovery mission outside.” 

“Did the recovery mission fail?”

“It never got off the ground. We spent weeks testifying, describing what happened, determining who was culpable and how to proceed. Such a sudden and complete loss of so many team members directly contributed to the government giving up on anything to do with the basin after that and turning it over to the Hunter Association. The research wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. It wasn’t worth the cost. In the end, there wasn’t any recovery mission. After being given a choice, Toquo chose not to come back.”

A short sound of frustration, not specifically directed at Dr. Morro, but still intended for him among others, hissed from between Kurapika’s clenched teeth. “None of this was reported to the Hunter Association,” he said. “You say you spent weeks testifying, but we don’t have any records of it. I checked yesterday, before my own visitor showed up, and besides a short note about your team going missing, the full scale of the accident and its repercussions aren’t even recorded in the station’s own logs. Toquo’s departure isn’t even mentioned. Everything stops right there, leaving a gap lasting months until the results of various maintenance tests taken during the transition from government control to the Hunter Association begin.”

“We had more on our minds than maintaining a log book,” said Dr. Morro. “As you can imagine.”

“Even taking into account yours and Dr. Costu’s tendency for blatant negligence in your duties, it doesn’t make sense that such information wasn’t available elsewhere, especially if you were supposedly testifying for weeks and trying to organize a recovery mission.” Kurapika never stopped glaring at Dr. Morro, though in the end, it probably hadn’t been Dr. Morro’s decision. Despite this, Kurapika still asked, “So, why was all this covered up?”

The extent of his nation’s secrecy concerning what had happened in the basin was news to Dr. Morro. At the same time, he didn’t seem surprised . “Maybe, since most of the team died, and I came back sounding as if I’d lost my mind, it was deemed a critical mission failure,” said Dr. Morro. “Maybe the higher-ups thought it’d make the basin less attractive to your Association, or it’d delay the transfer. They wanted someone to take the basin off their hands as quickly as possible.”

“You actually testified about the visitors, then?”

“Yes. Or, I did. Toquo and Costu did not.”

“Did they know about them at the time?”

“Yes. They were the first to know, in fact. Febiu was the first to show up. Toquo and Costu met him in the woods. They left him there. We all agreed it couldn’t really have been him.”

Kurapika swallowed. “Are you sure it wasn’t?” he asked.

“It was two weeks after, and his suit was still like new. On top of that, I watched Febiu die from above, on the cliff. He’s the one I knew was dead for certain. I saw his face change, become empty. I saw him stop struggling, heard him stop calling for me to pull him out. He was dead.”

“How did you get away, up the cliff, in time, and he didn’t?”

“Febiu and I never entered the cavern. While descending into it, he was injured. I stayed back with him, trying to tell everyone we needed to go. Two people couldn’t travel alone, and I couldn’t get him back up the cliff by myself. They didn’t listen to me. They saw something in the cavern and went after it.”

“What did they see?”

“At first? They saw what we all expected. When Febiu discovered the opening of the cavern a few weeks earlier, he’d noted carvings on the wall of people and animals that were nothing like what the basin had ever been known to contain. We spent weeks doing safety checks in the area, testing that the cavern was safe to enter, sending in robots to look around and sample the air. Everything went well. There wasn’t supposed to be any water inside, and we’d installed fans to keep dangerous levels of vapor from collecting. The day of the accident was the second manned excursion, but my first. We were supposed to stay near the ledge and enter in rotations, but everyone hurried forward like they were in some kind of a trance when they saw what was there waiting for us.” 

“What was it?”

“People, apparently, strangers, at the end of the cavern. Even Febiu was trying to get inside, but his leg was injured, and he couldn’t drag himself fast enough in his suit and gear. I was checking the lines to figure out a way to pull him back up, so, I missed it, whatever it was, that got everyone running inside.”

“Everyone ran forward?” asked Kurapika. He lowered his head and pressed his fingertips together, not letting the eeriness of such an occurrence get to him, but also unable to keep from remembering the humanlike figure he’d felt more than seen standing in the caverns below the explosion site. “They went towards what? Who?”

“I was struggling with Febiu, so, I wasn’t hearing everything he was going on about. He mentioned a name I didn’t know. By chance I saw the Oha leaf he’d tied to his wrist had changed color, and I tried to pull him away with me, back to the lip of the entrance. I stumbled and fell, and he scrambled over me. I couldn’t see very well in my mask. I was disoriented, and I thought my respiratory device would become unplugged. His hand was caught in it. I untangled him and pushed him away, but it ended up throwing him off balance and backwards. He staggered and went over the ledge, into the lake. I couldn’t get up fast enough to pull him back. Water started rushing by at my feet when I stood up. It was coming up from inside the cavern. I was confused. It wasn’t supposed to be there. I panicked and climbed out, up the cliff. I heard people shouting for help—clear voices, unmuffled by the respirators, more voices those of the team. By the time I reached the top of the cliff, it was only Febiu shouting up at me. I don’t know why he hadn’t died the moment he hit the water. All I could do was watch as he drowned. No poison, no algae. He simply couldn’t keep himself afloat in his waterlogged gear.”

Kurapika let the details of the story settle in his mind. Of course Dr. Costu had lied about Dr. Morro ranting and raving when he’d gotten back. The entire time, Dr. Morro had known exactly what’d happened to his team. All Dr. Costu had done was mislead Kurapika by feeding into Kurapika’s natural yet unfounded assumption that Dr. Morro was out of his mind. In hindsight, nothing except Dr. Morro’s unwillingness to leave the control room had ever stood out as peculiar. Every interaction between him and Kurapika, while strained, hadn’t felt as if he’d been interacting with someone out of touch with reality.

“Where did you get the explosives?” asked Kurapika.

“They were dropped in with supplies, and Costu collected them with his robots.”

“Toquo sent them?”

“She’d seen Febiu. She agreed we needed to destroy the bodies, to free them from the lake.”

“Dr. Costu’s robots can’t climb cliffs. How did he get everything into the cavern?”

“He told the Hunter here that we were mapping the underground tunnels using sonar. The explosives were disguised as equipment. Unlike you, that Hunter knew, at least to some extent, a tragic event had taken place in one of the caverns, and that it’d interrupted research in the basin. For a while, he was helpful and understanding, taking time from his own work to assist Costu and I as much as he could.”

“And when did he stop being helpful and understanding?”

“When he realized we were setting up explosives enough to cave in the cavern entirely.”

“Did you tell him the truth, then?”

“Parts. We told him we wanted to blow away a narrow point at the end of the cavern to locate human remains, since the government had decided not to invest in a recovery mission. We told him the tragedy was bigger than he’d been so loosely informed, and that we were on our own trying to make things right. We were hoping that much of the truth would persuade him.”

“He still didn’t want to help.”

“No.”

“And when did you tell him about the visitors? The hallucinations?”

“We told him that after Costu stopped treating his worsening sleep disorder. We were hoping he’d become more suggestible as he deteriorated mentally. Costu set the stage, told him I was crazy, that the lake had driven me crazy. Then, he made sure the Hunter met Febiu and the others.”

“He still refused to blow up the cavern after that.”

“We never got to ask him if he would. He ran away from the station after he saw the hallucinations were real.”

Kurapika sat back, tapping his tongue against the roof of his mouth in mock disappointment. “The plan to make him paranoid might’ve been too effective,” he noted. Dr. Morro nodded.

“We scaled it back in your case,” said Dr. Morro. “Tried to figure out what you were like first. It was a little worrying you’d made it through the basin on your own virtually unscathed. That sort of mental and physical fortitude was intimidating.” 

Kurapika made a short, derisive sound between clenched teeth. Dr. Morro nodded in agreement. 

“But, in many ways, you weren’t a typical candidate, were you?” said Dr. Morro. “We were suspicious about your true reason for being here. It was hard to believe the Hunter Association would be so stupid as to send someone so obviously out of place as you to keep tabs on us. Something was off, but Costu and I couldn’t agree what. You weren’t snooping around behind our backs or doing anything else suspicious. To be honest, you didn’t seem very curious about us or what we were doing in any way.”

“I wasn’t told to spy on you,” said Kurapika. “Your first guess, what you said to me when I first arrived to the station, was more accurate: I was sent here to be kept out of the way.”

“Really?” asked Dr. Morro, openly amazed. “I made that up a when Costu and I were reading your file together.” A small, proud smile spread across his lips over what had, at the time, been an entertaining joke he hadn’t suspected was true. “Of course, Costu considered it a real possibility after he realized you were Kurta. I’d never heard of a Kurta in my life, but he told me you’d all been massacred for your eyes, or for being half-demons or something—I stopped listening when he started listing too many theories at once. We decided to delay telling you about the visitors, just in case you took off like the first Hunter. Also, we needed you to recover from your injuries first.” Dr. Morro grimaced and became unusually apologetic. “That was a mistake, by the way. We didn’t know you were outside. The last I had checked, you’d gone to your room. I didn’t realize you’d gone out. I never would’ve thought you’d have been on the roof. It was impossible. It was insane.”

“Were you waiting for me to get here before blowing up the cavern?”

“Yes. We didn’t know the exact day you’d arrive. We were trying our best not to have you caught in the blast. We didn’t want to kick-start an international incident between your Association and whoever they thought was responsible for killing you.”

“You didn’t think I’d be suspicious if I arrived and there was a massive explosion right after?”

“We intended to blow it up and explain later. Costu and I figured if it solved the problem, we could just say it was a mushroom and leave it at that. You’d never have to know.”

“But the problem wasn’t solved.”

“No. Costu was monitoring the lake and saw Febiu in the water trying to climb out while you were still recovering. It hadn’t worked. They were still out there. We decided you should fix the nearest camera so we could have a better idea of what might be going on, if maybe there was just Febiu, because he hadn’t died in the cavern like everyone else. If you ran into a visitor then, Costu was going to act like you were seeing things, and I was going to tell you the truth. Costu was betting the element of doubt would compel you to stay and find out for yourself what was really going. He figured that was your nature after seeing you researching the basin so diligently in your free time.”

Although he’d been intending to manipulate Kurapika with it, Dr. Costu’s accurate assessment didn’t offended Kurapika or upset him. Someone who’d understood him so quickly might’ve come to understand him even better over time, realized he was reliable, and worked well with him on a team. Considering his previous occupation, Kurapika knew better than anyone that an initial period of distrust between strangers was normal and expected. 

Kurapika was nevertheless deeply disturbed and furious to hear he’d nearly died out of carelessness. One final check of the station, just to make sure everyone was accounted for before blowing the cliffside to smithereens, was all it would’ve taken. Kurapika sighed in exasperation and pinched the bridge of his nose as he struggled with the realization. Dr. Morro cleared his throat but said nothing.

“So, how were you planning to ‘destroy the source’ for Febiu, who was still bobbing around in the water?” asked Kurapika a minute later. “To me, it sounds like we’ve come back around to ‘blow up the lake’, haven’t we? Was Toquo going to find you a nuclear bomb?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Dr. Morro. “By that time, Costu…. He’d always had another theory about what the source could be. He was only eliminating the option of the cavern in order to narrow down our choices. He never fully believed blowing up the cavern would really change anything.”

“What did he think might be the source?”

“Ourselves.”

Kurapika frowned, taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“He believed our minds were the source.” 

“And?”

“I replaced his lead medical officer’s pass with a subordinate pass that I could program to restrict his access to the control room. Then, I changed the access codes on the doors. I realized he might try to kill me to test his theory. He’d seen you use Nen to heal yourself, and was growing more and more paranoid about what was truly possible out here. In the end, we can assume he tested his theory on himself.”

Kurapika thought about Segundino sitting in the freezer. “It didn’t work,” he said.

“It doesn’t seem to have.”

“So, it’s back to blowing up the lake.”

“I…well, I don’t know about that, either. But, you’re in the same boat with that child following you around, now. You’re as qualified as any of us at this point to guess as to where you think it’s come from. So, be my guest.”

Though the last thing he wanted to do now or ever, Kurapika revisited his first meeting with the new Pairo. He’d demanded to know what it was the second he’d seen it. He’d commanded it to tell him the truth when it only gave him its name. As he’d raised his voice, he’d remembered Dr. Costu shouting and throwing things at Segundino. For a moment, this had calmed him down. He’d remembered Dr. Costu’s own eerie sense of calm. In his own way, he’d been mirroring Dr. Costu’s actions, except for the very obvious fact that he was in no way willing to kill himself, no matter how many hours passed after Pairo first appeared.

“Did you see it? Did it come out of nowhere like Dr. Costu’s brother?” asked Kurapika, both him and Dr. Morro knowing he was referring to Pairo.

“In your case, no. The kid opened the door and let itself in from outside.”

Kurapika stared at Dr. Morro.

“…From outside?”

“Yes.”

“But it touched my hand when I met it. There was no reaction on my skin. I didn’t get sick.”

“It performed a perfect decontamination and changed into a station uniform after it entered.”

“How?” asked Kurapika in an astonished whisper.

“Do I look like I’d know?” asked Dr. Morro. “Maybe the lake told it how. It’s had years watching researchers go through the same procedures every time they enter the station. It’s that, or you aren’t telling me something about where this kid is from.”

“He’s just someone I used to know,” explained Kurapika. “He never knew the Solaris Basin existed. He never left our village in his entire life. He died a long time ago. Almost a decade ago.”

“So, there’s no chance he’s real?”

“Zero.”

“And he’d never have been to the basin?”

“No.”

Dr. Morro grew thoughtful. Kurapika didn’t like the tone of his voice or the conclusions he might be drawing. The same paranoia Dr. Morro had felt towards Dr. Costu was infecting Kurapika now, putting him on his guard.

“So, even if you are the source of the blueprint for constructing that kid, killing you won’t make it go away,” Dr. Morro concluded. “There’s more to it than just the memory of the person you used to know. Killing you would eliminate the source for everything that makes it like the person you knew. It would then be shaped only by what everyone else around it perceives it as.”

Kurapika’s eyes narrowed. “This had better just be innocent speculation,” he warned. “If you think you can kill me to test it out, bear in mind I respond to threats on my life in turn.”

Dr. Morro was unreadable. He didn’t speak or try to stop Kurapika as Kurapika got up and began throwing open the doors to every wall locker in the back of the room. 

“No more secrets, no more hiding things,” said Kurapika and he yanked open door after door with a deafening bang. “Let’s start here. I want to know exactly what’s going on in this control room.”

Wall lockers’ contents exposed, Kurapika raised the lights, transforming the blurred, quivering edges of the shadows in the control room into sharp, stark lines. Rows of closely packed desks and monitors, which had looked like endless screens in the dark, were now laid bare, revealing the truth of just how cramped the room was. Kurapika went through every box and crate, every drawer and shelf, even going so far as to tap around and listen for hollow spaces. Food, toiletries, and spare clothes littered the floor at his feet. In one of the restrooms, damp clothes had been draped over repurposed cables set to bridge the spaces between stalls. Kurapika tore all of it down to check the pockets and sleeves. Dr. Morro, who’d got up at last and was standing at the door with his arms crossed, pursed his lips but didn’t speak up. He rolled his eyes and went back to his computer when Kurapika started checking in and around the toilets.

“Is all this necessary?” asked Dr. Morro when Kurapika had finished with the restrooms and was making his way around the control room itself, inspecting under desks and around monitors. He didn’t answer Dr. Morro’s question. Necessary or no, Dr. Morro wasn’t going to be able to stop him.

A wall locker Kurapika had already opened caught his eye as he surveyed the room a final time. It was one in a line of five battered lockers that’d been dragged into the room after Dr. Morro had started living there full-time. Scraps on the floor, invisible in the usual, dim light, caught the glare of a lamp at just the right angle from where Kurapika was standing. This wall locker had been pulled out and pushed back in multiple times. Something worth getting to must’ve lay behind it.

Dr. Morro sucked in a hiss of breath between clenched teeth as Kurapika approached the locker in question. After kicking aside the locker’s former contents now strewn across the floor, he knelt down and wrapped his chains around the bottom. He pulled back on the chains until he’d created a gap wide enough to peek through. After a quick, defiant look in Dr. Morro’s direction, he peered inside.

“What’s behind this door,” asked Kurapika, “and why is it hidden..or will I have to knock it down myself to find out?” 

Dr. Morro didn’t answer. Kurapika heard a flurry of quick footsteps and a shout as Dr. Morro sprang, having snuck up behind him with a ledger held high. He swung, attempting to bring the ledger down on Kurapika’s head. Kurapika sidestepped and pushed Dr. Morro the rest of the way into the side of the wall locker. With a cry of pain and alarm, Dr. Morro struck it book and face first and crumpled into a heap on the ground. Kurapika kicked him aside, rolling him onto his back an arm’s length from where he’d fallen. Dr. Morro cowered and covered his head, tensing for another blow, but Kurapika didn’t kick him again.

“You idiot,” chided Kurapika down to him. Dr. Morro groaned, clutching his head and rocking slightly. “How could someone without a brain like you even manage to lose their mind out here in the first place?”

“Don’t kill me,” pleaded Dr. Morro when Kurapika stepped closer to kick the fallen ledger across the room and out of Dr. Morro’s reach. Kurapika made a disgusted face.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “What makes you think I’d kill you?”

“I...I attacked you.”

“Oh,” said Kurapika, looking at the ledger and then back at Dr. Morro. “You thought…?”

Dr. Morro’s face turned red, anger mixed with shame. He swore at Kurapika and rolled over onto his side, facing away from him. Kurapika watched him and shrugged before turning back to look at the door hidden behind the wall locker.

One closer inspection, it wasn’t a true door. It was a repurposed countertop from one of the station’s break-rooms, too heavy for its hinges and latched with only a loop of knotted electrical cord. With a little force, Kurapika should’ve been able to pull it out of the wall directly and set it aside. He moved the locker the rest of the way to clear a path, but was surprised a moment later when, despite its appearance, the door held fast. Some invisible force was keeping it in place. 

Kurapika switched to using Gyo, confirming his suspicions. With a tired sigh, he crouched down beside Dr. Morro still whimpering in pain on the floor.

“Who sealed this door?” asked Kurapika. 

“The Hunter who was here before you.”

“What’s behind it?”

“…Supplies.”

“Be more specific.”

“Equipment.”

“Maybe some special ‘sonar’ equipment?”

Dr. Morro grunted.

“How much is in there?”

“Not much.”

Kurapika sighed. “Again, be more speci—”

There was a soft knock on the far door. 

Kurapika froze and looked up in alarm, while Dr. Morro had the nerve to break into a grin. No matter how much Kurapika hit him or pushed him around, they were equals when it came to the lake and its newest game.

“You ought to let it in,” Dr. Morro told Kurapika after a second knock. “I’ll probably take the door down if you don’t.”

Kurapika shot a glare at Dr. Morro so hard the man flinched. He got up and went to the door. The knocking was growing more persistent, impatient.

“What is it?” asked Kurapika, opening the door and looking down. “What do you want?”

“I was looking for you,” said Pairo. He was speaking in their native tongue, although Kurapika had addressed him in the Hunter language. “What were you doing?”

Kurapika looked back at Dr. Morro, who’d taken the opportunity to crawl into a nearby corner and pull himself up to a sitting position. Turning back to Pairo, he swallowed hard before asking in a quieter voice, “Why didn’t you stay where I told you?” He switched over to his native language to keep Dr. Morro from understanding. “I said I’d be back. You were supposed to wait.”

“I didn’t know where you were,” said Pairo. He took a step forward, inviting himself into the room. Kurapika moved aside to keep from touching him. Once inside the control room, Pairo spotted Dr. Morro hunched over in pain in the corner.

“What happened to him?” asked Pairo. He had the nerve to look worried, even though he and Dr. Morro had never met.

“He hit his head,” said Kurapika. He let the door shut behind him once Pairo was far enough away. Pairo walked up to Dr. Morro, who’d shut his eyes and didn’t realize anyone was there until the boy was leaning in to get a better look. He asked Dr. Morro if he was okay. Dr. Morro’s eyes shot open, startled to see it wasn’t Kurapika back to interrogate him. Pairo assumed Dr. Morro hadn’t understood him, and tapped his own head to indicate he was referring to Dr. Morro’s injuries. Dr. Morro reached up to the same spot on his head and drew back his hand sharply, feeling it wet. Only then did he notice the blood on his shirt.

“A doctor,” murmured Dr. Morro, the sight of his own blood on his fingertips making him woozy. “We need a doctor.”

“Head wounds bleed a lot,” said Kurapika. “It looks worse than it is.”

“It hurts.”

Kurapika shrugged and motioned for Pairo to step away from Dr. Morro. He told Pairo to grab a first-aid kit from one of the piles on the floor. Pairo looked around the mess of supplies doubtfully. Kurapika pointed to a first-aid kit nearby, and Pairo collected it. He set it down on the ground next to Dr. Morro and opened it, separating out the items inside.

“Bandages,” said Pairo firmly, waving a packet of gauze in front of Dr. Morro, who’d tried to crawl away when he noticed Pairo approaching him again. Kurapika listen curiously, not having expected Pairo to use the Hunter language, although such basic medical terms were among the first words either of them had ever learned. Dr. Morro stopped trying to escape, and Pairo handed over the gauze packet. Pointing to his own head, said, “Hold it with weight.”

“What?”

Pairo pointed to his head again and then pressed a flat hand against the area above his left eye. “To here like that, with wei—”

“He’s telling you to apply pressure to the wound,” explained Kurapika with a put-upon voice. Pairo didn’t mind the correction, but frowned at Kurapika’s attitude. Kurapika ignored him. “I know he doesn’t speak the Hunter language, but honestly, it’s basic first-aid if you’re bleeding.”

Pairo interrupted before Dr. Morro could come up with a retort. “I speak it,” he argued, stubbornly continuing to use the Hunter language to make his point. “I don’t know everything perfect for medicine. Okay?”

“‘Hold with weight’,” recited Kurapika before switching to the Kurta language, “doesn’t mean anything.”

Pairo refused to back down. “I mean you hold the hand, and then, the weight….”

“You mean ‘press’,” said Kurapika, shaking his head. “It’s a basic word.”

“For me, no.”

“Because you don’t speak the Hunter language.”

“I know it, now. Press here. Press down. Press onward. Press the red button. Press to start.”

“So?” asked Kurapika, motioning to Dr. Morro who was looking dumbly between them, confused because the only half of the conversation he understood was Pairo’s. Kurapika hadn’t stopped using the Kurta language. “Look at him. He’s afraid of you and too stupid to understand you speaking to him weird and using the wrong words. I’ll just translate, okay? You’re just going to confuse him more.”

Without another word, Pairo crossed his arms and left Dr. Morro’s side. Dr. Morro breathed a sigh of relief when he was gone, which Pairo pretended not to hear.

Holding the wall for support, Dr. Morro stood up. With a wobbly step, he made his way to a nearby computer, muttering to himself all the while, “…another doctor, but of course, knowing my luck, they’re going to send another damn Hunter out here, then it’ll be two of you breathing down my neck.”

“While you’re reporting to headquarters and getting us a new doctor, I’ll go make a call,” said Kurapika. Pairo hurried to follow Kurapika to the door, but kept looking back at Dr. Morro, his eyes never leaving the bloody spot at the side of the man’s head. “If you lock me out while I’m gone, every door into this room is coming down.”

“Do I look like someone who can handle getting hit again?” asked Dr. Morro without looking away from the keyboard as he typed out a message one-handed. “I might have a concussion now.”

“Then, you’d better focus on getting us a new doctor and absolutely nothing else while I’m gone,” said Kurapika. He stepped out without looking at Pairo, who’d been trying to catch his eye. Pairo shouted “sorry” back to Dr. Morro before following Kurapika out. He asked Kurapika when they were in the hall if they were going to bring more bandages and medicine back. Kurapika ignored him and kept walking as if he wasn’t even there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: After this I deleted an entire chapter and set off a chain reaction that delayed the entire fic lmao


	26. Who or What

Within seconds the emergency backup power kicked in, restoring the hum of fans and circulating air. A minute after that, ambient light strips along the floor and ceiling glowed a pale, fluorescent white, just enough to get around without a flashlight. 

Leorio had sent out a Nen pulse almost as soon as the power had gone out, but Kurapika, an idiot, was still using Zetsu. Why Kurapika hadn’t immediately enveloped himself in protective Nen the instant the power had gone out was a mystery Leorio hated the idea of solving. Extending a generous bubble of En around himself, he left the library and headed for the hall where he’d sensed Kurapika walking over an hour ago. Although he couldn’t sense Kurapika or the aura of the visitors, he could detect movement within the perimeter he’d set. Hopefully that would be enough if Dr. Morro had been telling the truth, and something was indeed coming for him. 

The hall was empty, as were Kurapika’s previous quarters on the same floor. Leorio entertained the thought of going through every single room for a few, frenzied seconds, but had enough sense left to know it’d be a waste of time. He should head down to the infirmary. It was more likely Kurapika would be there, or else would arrive eventually to regroup.

Perhaps it was his thoughts of the infirmary or the fact that the only stranger he felt even a little threatened by in the dark was Segundino, but, as he turned to go, Leorio found himself recalling Dr. Costu’s room was also on this floor. He couldn’t help but count from the number on the nearest door until he was looking at Dr. Costu’s. A strange feeling compelled to go there. He made it as far as standing directly in front of the door, stopping close enough to read the nameplate in the haze of the dim emergency lighting.

“Dr. Claupacio Costu,” he murmured. He reached out to touch the nameplate, perhaps pull it down since the room had never truly been occupied. His fingers hardly brushed the corner before a definite crash came from inside. Leorio froze and sent out a stronger wave of En. 

Whoever or whatever was inside had no aura.

His memories of the night two days ago resurfaced for an instant. The first sound he’d caught then had been labored breathing from another room. For a bedridden child, the visitor had proven unsettlingly difficult to find. Just like Segundino, just like Pairo, the obvious signs of life had only seemed to snap into existence the moment Leorio anticipated them and not a second sooner. He remembered straining his ears in darkness as he went from room to room, hesitant to turn on a light that would brighten the hall and alert Kurapika or Pairo, but not daring to shut the door behind him. 

Standing outside Dr. Costu’s quarters now, the dilemma had been reversed to facing a shut door with a mystery on the other side. The logical assumption was that it must be Segundino making his rounds, except Segundino never touched anything, and Leorio had clearly heard something fall to the floor. If it were Segundino, something about him had changed.

Leorio put aside whatever concern he might’ve entertained about intruding where he didn’t belong and grasped the door handle. Contracting his En into a closer, more accurate perimeter, he opened the door and stepped into the deep, unlit darkness of Dr. Costu’s neglected rooms.

A small figure was crouched in the corner where the long back counter met a bookshelf. They were rummaging through a pile of whatever had fallen. Leorio didn’t take long to realize it was Pairo. At the same time, Pairo looked over and saw Leorio.

“What’s going on here?” asked Leorio. “What are you doing?” He took a step and hit the side of his foot again a boxy object on the floor. “What’s all this?” he said, waving to the mess.

Pairo took a breath to answer, but when he looked past Leorio into the dim light of the hallway and saw no-one, he paused. A familiar blankness spread across his face before Leorio could react, to lie or reassure him, distract him long enough to get an answer before it was too late.

“Where’s Kurapika?”

“Sorry?”

“You’re with Kurapika?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Where’s he now?”

“I—” Leorio had been about to say he didn’t know, but realized in a fleeting moment of perspective that disclosing his doubts could drive Pairo to some other, worse state than the one he was verging on now. “I’m going to the infirmary,” said Leorio instead. It was probably better to try to keep Pairo with him than to explain too much and risk losing track of him all over again. “Come with me.”

Leorio’s approach seemed to work. Pairo left the corner where he’d been either searching or tidying, Leorio hadn’t fully discerned which. With no choice but to do as he’d said, Leorio left the room and headed to the stairwell.

“I checked,” said Leorio when he noticed Pairo stopping in the doorway to look down the hall. With a dull nod, Pairo shifted his unblinking gaze away from Kurapika’s original room assignment. He followed Leorio down the stairs without saying a word.

“I left…,” Leorio started to explain on the stairs, but caught himself. He’d been about to tell Pairo that he’d left Kurapika in the infirmary over an hour ago, as casually as if they were both on a search for Kurapika now the same way Kurapika and Leorio had been searching for Pairo earlier. When not looking at Pairo, it was easy to forget how Pairo’s eyes stared forward, empty and unfamiliar, creating the distance of a total stranger where there’d once been a child Leorio had cared for and befriended.

“Want to split up or search around together?” asked Leorio when he and Pairo arrived to the infirmary’s reception area and saw no-one was there.

“Search for what?” asked a voice further down the hall. Kurapika emerged a moment later carrying a crate in his arms. The flashlight hanging at his elbow collided against it with a hard, plastic crack as he stopped. 

Pairo’s overwhelming relief at the sight of Kurapika washed the dullness from his eyes, returning him to normal in a wave of emotion. Leorio regretted not using Gyo or extending his En the moment they’d entered. He couldn’t tell if Kurapika had heard them and released his Zetsu, or if he’d just been several minutes late in remembering to use Nen, his literal best defense in any crisis.

“Where have you been?” asked Leorio, contrasting Pairo’s immense relief with a hard glare of accusation. While he was as relieved as Pairo to see Kurapika safe, he wasn’t going to show it if Kurapika was going to act like everything was fine. “Pairo was worried about you.”

Kurapika feigned disinterest. “I told you he finds me eventually. Where could I escape from him? And in the dark?”

“What have you been up to?”

Kurapika lifted the crate in his arms slightly. “Food and supplies haven’t been restocked since the last Hunter arrived, and Dr. Morro took more than his fair share. Now that there are three of us, it’s been bothering me, so I was scavenging around for whatever I could find in case our situation changed. As I was heading back, all this happened.” Kurapika motioned in a small circle with his head, the crate in his arms preventing him from using his hands. “It’s good I already had a flashlight with me.”

“You weren’t looking for Pairo, then?”

“No, not at all,” said Kurapika, as if this were a ridiculous question. “Were you?”

Leorio pursed his lips. “He was in Costu’s room.”

“Oh? You were searching this whole time? I’m surprised we didn’t run into each other.”

“No. I stumbled across Pairo on accident after the power went out.”

“That’s more mysterious. Why were you in Dr. Costu’s room?”

“I heard something fall when I was passing by there looking for you to see if you were safe.”

“I see. That was lucky,” said Kurapika. Curiosity satisfied, he set the crate of provisions on a chair beside the reception desk. Leorio glanced inside, but in the dim light couldn’t make out much below a top layer of meal replacement bars and soap. “Is this everything?” he asked. It was barely enough for a week between three people, unless they started rationing immediately.

“There’s more in the doctor’s office,” said Kurapika.

“A lot more?”

“Not really.”

Leorio sighed and picked up the crate, bringing it to the doctor’s office where he saw three more piles of poured out supplies already on the back counter. Kurapika trailed in after him, and without a word, began sorting items with Pairo’s help. Leorio joined them, and for the next several minutes they organized items into groups based on whether they were food, toiletries, clothing, or minor equipment like flashlights and batteries. Kurapika had also discovered a stock of campkits, which surprised Leorio enough to break the silence and comment on who in their right mind would spend a night camping in the basin. Kurapika pointed out that these were probably emergency supplies researchers brought along when they were traveling far from the station. If there was some delay and it got dark, it was smarter to stop and wait for daylight.

“Speaking of, we probably shouldn’t wander away from the infirmary until morning,” said Kurapika. “After the sun’s out, we can assess what caused this outage. Decide how to continue on from here.”

“But what if the cause is…” started Leorio before sneaking a glance towards the wall in the direction of the likely no longer barricaded stairwell to the subterranean storerooms. He took a deep breath. “If the lake seeping in downstairs caused this, we might consider staying put and waiting until a team from our regional headquarters arrives. Whenever backup power kicks in, an alert is sent to headquarters along with any diagnostic data concerning what when wrong. They’ll probably know better than we do what happened. Considering how fast they’ll be able to assemble a team, they may be here before dawn.”

Kurapika was holding a protein bar and pointed it at Leorio. “Do you really trust them to respond so promptly?” he asked. “Considering the egregious oversights committed so far?”

“We don’t know for certain that their lack of response has been intentional,” said Leorio, already bristling at Kurapika’s typical, condescending tone. “As you well know, people around here have a tendency to not provide the people outside with all the facts whenever a situation comes up.”

Kurapika narrowed his eyes. “You say that as if you’re not also guilty of the same,” he said.

“Me?” huffed Leorio. “No, actually, _I’ve_ been trying to contact Mizai _every day_ since I got here….”

“I don’t mean who’s been better at contacting Mizai.”

Leorio’s gaze hardened as he was forced to recall the bandaged body of the stranger alone in the sick ward, unwanted. “Ah. I see,” he said. “And you’re much better? Just because you can’t hide Pairo doesn’t mean you wouldn’t if you could.”

“I wasn’t implying I’ve been better than you. I just mean you should count yourself among us.”

“Among whom?”

“Those ‘people around here’.”

Leorio bit his tongue and extracted himself before he started raising his voice and calling Kurapika names. He crossed over to the opposite side of the U-shaped counter and paced for a few steps once he had room. He ran his hand over more of the waiting, miscellaneous supplies as he passed, but never grabbed anything to sort it into a pile. 

“This is ridiculous,” he said, his voice calmer but his temper no less evident. “I have the nerve to keep one thing from you until I’m at a stage where I can better deal with it, and to you that’s worse than the _everything_ that you seem to keep from me, that you’re still keeping from me even now, and that you’re only going to tell me later after you claim you forgot, when in reality, you just didn’t think I’d find out so soon.” He dropped his outstretched hand and curled it at his side. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t,” echoed Leorio. He turned towards Kurapika and Pairo and leaned back against the counter, tall enough to sit on it if he wanted to without hopping up. “That’s probably true,” he admitted. “You don’t think I’m stupid. But, you do think you’re smarter than me, so, you’re going to keep making decisions for me as if I’m the dumbest person in the world.” 

“I’m not.”

Pairo looked up at Kurapika when he said this, but Leorio couldn't find whatever it was Pairo saw on Kurapika’s face. Maybe they’d argued about something similar themselves. Leorio was pretty sure that if Kurapika didn’t respect a fellow Hunter and grown adult’s decisions, he was even worse when it came to Pairo.

“I understand it,” said Leorio after Kurapika stopped sorting supplies to hear him out. “Controlling what I know feels like protecting me. It’s a lot easier to make decisions for me than hear me tell you you’re wrong about something.”

Kurapika couldn’t lie and say this wasn’t the case. As a general statement, it was absolutely true. So, instead, he said nothing. As the silence lengthened, Leorio sighed and gave up. 

“You used to be more open with your friends,” said Leorio, turning back to the supplies on the counter. “We used to be included. But, at some point you stopped trusting us.” He looked over at Kurapika and then at Pairo. “If you can’t handle me telling you you’re wrong, though, then you clearly don’t trust yourself, either. You should reconsider whatever it is you think you’re doing for my benefit.”

Kurapika didn’t answer.

It didn’t occur to Leorio until much later, when he was already in bed, that Pairo had remained oddly reticent, not only during Leorio and Kurapika’s argument, but for the entire evening since Leorio had found him. When they’d stumbled across Kurapika in the infirmary, Pairo hadn’t cheered or greeted him with his usual, bubbly energy. While his eyes had lost their wide, vacant look, everything else about him had remained closed off. Leorio’s first unwelcome assumption had been that Pairo hadn’t completely returned, that something was still missing even after he’d been reunited with Kurapika. 

Only after he’d accidentally spied Pairo watching Kurapika behind Kurapika’s back with a stubbornly defiant look on his face, did it occur to Leorio that Pairo might’ve been giving Kurapika the silent treatment. Maybe Kurapika had sent Pairo to Dr. Costu’s room and promised him that he and Leorio would meet him there. When Leorio had showed up alone hours later, Pairo had felt betrayed and disappointed. If this were the case, it made Leorio uneasy. If Kurapika continued his habit of lying to Pairo about where he was, he’d lose Pairo’s trust, and from then on, Pairo would never leave him alone.

“You’d better get some sleep,” said Kurapika when he caught Leorio staring at Pairo instead of turning off the flashlight he was holding for everyone to get settled into bed. Leorio shot him an insolent look.

“Or you’ll what?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Kurapika. “I can’t force you.”

“Huh,” grunted Leorio. He switched off the flashlight and rolled over, facing away from Kurapika. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” two voices answered him. It was the only word Pairo had said to Leorio since they’d met in Dr. Costu’s room. 

Leorio didn’t take long after this to fall asleep, and deeply, too. The rare gift of restfulness wouldn’t last, however, as he was woken up over an hour later by someone shaking his shoulder with too much force and urgency to possibly be Kurapika. Leorio opened his eyes, ready for an ugly surprise, but there was only the hazy shape of Pairo crouched at eye-level beside his bed.

Silently, Pairo pulled Leorio’s hand in the direction of the door, indicating Leorio should follow him. Leorio activated a Nen barrier around himself before rising and tip-toeing out. When they reached the infirmary door, he hesitated.

“Not in here,” whispered Pairo, pointing to the reception area. “Kurapika will hear us.”

“Where are we going to go, then?”

“The stairs.”

The nearest stairwell wasn’t far, and it was true the reception area was too close to the room they were sleeping in to keep from waking Kurapika. Anywhere else they could’ve spoken, such as recreational rooms and labs, would only have had their designated escape routes illuminated. There was no arguing the logic of Pairo’s decision, but Leorio hesitated all the same. Stepping out into the hall felt as if he were stepping out unprotected into the basin itself, his eyes squeezed shut with only the sounds of impossible waves to guide him.

“So, where were you earlier?” asked Leorio after they’d arrived. The stairwell door, like all the passageway doors, was now fixed in an open position. They’d climbed up a flight before Leorio crossed his arms and plopped down into a lower set of steps. Pairo had climbed a few steps higher so that they were at the same level when seated. Judging by how deeply he leaned into the opposite railing, he didn’t think this conversation would be short. Leorio likewise made himself comfortable, and Pairo finally answered his question.

“I was waiting for Kurapika.”

“Did he sent you to Dr. Costu’s room himself?”

“He told me to wait.”

“He told me he didn’t know where you were.”

“He lied.”

Leorio swore. That Kurapika had lied didn’t surprise him, but the blunt confirmation still hurt.

“Why did he send you there?” asked Leorio after a pause.

“He didn’t want me to follow him and listen.”

“Listen? To what?”

“He wanted to talk to you alone. I don’t know why.”

This proved Leorio’s theory that the conversation Kurapika had forced earlier had been calculated. He’d planned it at least far enough in advance to send Pairo away and keep him from interfering. As for why, Leorio couldn’t guess. A normal person would’ve been embarrassed and sent Pairo away just to avoid the awkwardness, but Kurapika had never minded all that much what Pairo thought of him. The last things he seemed to consider were Pairo’s thoughts and feelings.

Leorio uncrossed an arm and scratched the back of his neck. A yawn wound up from his chest, and he directed it into the shoulder away from Pairo. Pairo yawned a second after him, much quieter. Leorio watched him, but couldn’t read the expression on his face beneath his long bangs and the shadows cast by the low-lit stairs.

“What did Kurapika tell you?” asked Pairo after wiping away tears the stifled yawn had put in his eyes. “What’s the secret?”

“Excuse me?”

“I couldn’t listen to it. Kurapika told me to wait.”

“He didn’t tell me any special secret.”

“When I was gone he said nothing?”

Leorio made a face, thinking back. “No, but…. That wasn’t a secret,” he said. “There was a misunderstanding.”

“He told you a misunderstanding?”

“No, what he…we had a misunderstanding.”

Pairo blinked several times and shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t understand?”

“It’s nothing,” said Leorio. “I shouldn’t tell you. It’ll embarrass him. If it were me, if I’d said something so stupid, I’d tell you. But in this case, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

Pairo narrowed his eyes. He made a sharp sound of frustration that surprised Leorio with its suddenness. “I asked him,” insisted Pairo. “He said it’s…not a bad thing, but it’s a complicated thing.”

“That’s right.”

“But, what thing?” demanded Pairo. “What’s the thing?”

Leorio shrugged unhelpfully. “Ask Kurapika.”

“I asked him,” said Pairo, as if he couldn’t believe he had to repeat himself. “I asked him, I asked him, and I asked him.”

“You should—”

“I should nothing,” said Pairo. “I asked you.” 

All Leorio did was cast him a long glance for an answer. 

Pairo shot to his feet, stumbling in his hurry, and Leorio reached out to catch him in case he fell down the stairs. Pairo pushed his hand away roughly before rounding on him.

“I have to know if you’re a good person,” said Pairo. Although he’d brushed Leorio off, he still held the ends of his fingers, which he took in both hands. His already weak vision was blurred further in the dark, but he managed to look Leorio in the face with enough earnestness to silence him. He continued, “I have to know you’re strong. I have to know you’re trustable. I have to know because he thinks he tells you one thing, and you’ll never talk to him. This thing, and you’ll not trust him. For this thing, as he goes, you don’t go with him. And ‘why?’ is because I want to know this thing he says, because I want he’s made a mistake, and so you don’t leave like that already.”

Pairo’s usual, methodical way of speaking was impossible to sustain while agitated. He spoke faster than he could pronounce the words, leaving Leorio trailing behind him. Regardless, by the time he was finished, it was perfectly clear Pairo wanted some sort of reassurance from Leorio. He’d see the tension that had developed between him and Kurapika, and it frightened him. Although he’d told Leorio to help Kurapika days ago, if he and Kurapika didn’t get along anymore, how could he?

“Nothing Kurapika could say could make me leave him behind,” said Leorio. “Don’t worry. I’ve considered he was trying to scare me off earlier, but if he thinks he can get me to take Morro and leave him on his own, he’s an idiot.”

“You promise?”

“Promise?” asked Leorio. “You want me to promise I’m not going to leave Kurapika here?”

Pairo glanced aside, unsure.

“Look at where we are,” said Leorio, “this place I dragged myself out to knowing full well what I was getting into. Unlike Kurapika, I had a choice whether or not to come here, and I didn’t hesitate. Do you think I’m ever going to leave him alone?”

Pairo believed Leorio, and yet, he still needed to ask, “But, promise?”

“Ok. I promise I won’t leave Kurapika behind.”

“Anything that happens, you won’t?”

“Yes. No matter what happens.”

“Even to save you?”

“I’d never leave anyone behind to save myself.”

Pairo nodded with a grave expression Leorio didn’t think matched the relief such sincere assurances should’ve given him. “Is that all you wanted to know?” asked Leorio. He tried a lighter tone. “Do you need to see how strong I am, too? The chair I destroyed is still in that exam room.”

The half-hearted attempt a levity failed, but it did earn Leorio a shockingly identical look to the one Kurapika gave him when he thought Leorio was being an idiot.

“What’s wrong?” asked Leorio. Pairo’s frown deepened. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” Pairo nodded.

“Kurapika wanted to show you it tomorrow,” said Pairo. “You found me too early.”

“Is there something in Costu’s room?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why he sent you there to wait?”

“Yes.” Pairo looked up and down the stairs, double checking for anyone nearby before leaning closer. “But, it wasn’t an accident. You found me too early, but it wasn’t an accident.”

“You alerted me on purpose when you heard me in the hallway.”

“Yes. I don’t think Kurapika has a good plan.”

“He didn’t seem upset that I found you.”

“He doesn’t think it’s a problem. It’s a small change.”

“Why did you reveal yourself, then?”

“To make a problem, but Kurapika wasn’t there with you. Then, I had to find Kurapika. No more.”

“We can go back to Costu’s now and check,” said Leorio. “Or you can go back to the infirmary, and I’ll go alone.”

“I’ll go,” said Pairo. He started climbing the stairs, and Leorio stood and followed him. They exited on the first landing and headed for Dr. Costu’s quarters. 

“Here,” said Pairo, handing Leorio a flashlight. Leorio switched it on as he opened the door and almost immediately collided with Segundino’s back. He let out a shout of surprise and swung out a hand behind him protectively to shield Pairo. Segundino, however, didn’t react.

“He’s so creepy,” grumbled Leorio to Pairo as he reached out to nudge Segundino aside with the back of his hand against Segundino’s shoulder. Segundino look over, his expression vacant. No faint light of recognition entered his eyes at the sight of Leorio or Pairo. He didn’t ask for Dr. Costu, either. All he did was mutely step aside, like an insect being nudged aside with the side of one’s foot to herd it out of traffic.

Leorio’s non-slip shoes squeaked at he went around Segundino. He pointed his flashlight down and caught the gleam of water streaked across the floor, remnants of whatever tracks Segundino had left when he’d entered the room and proceeded to stand there, immobile, for who could say how long.

“Where do I look, Pairo?” asked Leorio, aiming his flashlight into the room. He didn’t dare risk stepping out and turning his back on Segundino, defensive En perimeter or no.

“It’s in boxes and everywhere,” said Pairo. Leorio aimed the light down onto one of the miscellaneous pieces of equipment he’d nearly stepped on earlier. “Yes, those things,” said Pairo. “Everywhere.”

Countless boxes and loose knots of wire were strewn about the room, none of them familiar to Leorio. He was more at home around the inner workings of the human body than electrical circuits or mechanical equipment. He picked up the nearest boxy item, some sort of case, and held it close to his face, trying to see if anything were written on it, or if it had any identifying feature he might recognize that would clue him in on its purpose. It didn’t take long for him to resign himself to his ignorance and ask Pairo, “So, what is all of this?”

Pairo trotted forward to grab a set of thin bars and wire a few feet away from Leorio, but it clattered to the ground as he was yanked back by his collar. Leorio sprang after Segundino, who dragged Pairo out into the hall while shouting something Leorio didn’t understand. He thought he heard the word “Solaris” repeated more than once, but Segundino’s accent made it hard to tell.

Segundino shook Pairo violently by his shoulders as he shouted. By the time Leorio entered the hallway, Segundino was pulling back his fist. Leorio grabbed him by the wrist and twisted his arm, hearing the pop of a joint and the sickening crack of breaking bone. Leorio normally wouldn’t have resorted to breaking someone’s arm as his first move in a fight, but the knowledge that the break would heal soon on its own emboldened him. An instant later, as Segundino cried out in pain, Leorio reconsidered the level of force he was using and released him.

“Let go of him,” said Leorio as he pried Segundino’s other hand loose from its hold on Pairo’s shirt. Once Pairo was free, Segundino roared at Leorio and swung at him. There wasn’t enough room to add momentum to the punch, and Leorio easily caught it and pushed back, threatening to break several of Segundino’s fingers and his wrist as well if he kept on fighting.

“What’s gotten into you?” asked Leorio, glaring down at Segundino after throwing him backwards a fair distance down the hall. Segundino tried to push himself back up using his broken arm, but crumbled with a whimper as it failed beneath him. He lay on his back, breathing heavily and staring up at the ceiling while Leorio waited for an answer.

“What are you doing?” asked Leorio again. “What the hell was that?”

“Water,” panted Segundino. “Satta….”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”

“Satta,” said Segundino again with greater emphasis.

“Satta’s in the freezer,” said Leorio, agitated now as the rush from fighting Segundino wore off. He approached menacingly, clenching his fists at his sides. “What the hell are—”

“He’s not in the cooler?” called Pairo from the doorframe he was cowering behind. Leorio stopped in his tracks. A second later, his shoulders slouched, and he relaxed his curled fists.

“You’re right, he’s in the cooler,” said Leorio. He took one step back, then another. He joined Pairo a moment later and knelt down to look Pairo over. Segundino, still flat on his back, didn’t risk trying to get up again.

“Are you okay?” asked Leorio to Pairo.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why that guy snapped?”

“He’s maybe confused?”

“About what, now? He’s been confused this entire time.”

“He knows it, now. Costu is dead.”

“And he attacked _you_?”

“He attacked the source.”

Leorio paused. “You’re not the lake. You’re Pairo.”

“He doesn’t see Pairo. He said to me, ‘The source is ourselves.’”

“You understood him?”

“No. But, I knew.”

“How?”

Pairo didn’t explain further, but Leorio didn’t need him to.  After straightening and brushing off his scrubs, he headed back to Dr. Costu’s room to gather a few of the seemingly random bits of equipment strewn about. As he neared and passed Segundino in the hallway, the man crawled away from him backwards, repeating what Leorio understood now to be “the source is ourselves” with pleading insistence. Leorio ignored him.

Pairo had gotten a head-start down the stairs, but when he reached the hall, instead of turning towards the infirmary, he went deeper into the station. Leorio continued after him, confused, until he realized they were headed towards the barricaded stairwell Segundino had dismantled for a second time.

“You’re going to have to tell me what we’re doing before I take another step,” said Leorio, halting in front of the entryway. “Maybe it’s okay for you, but it’s not safe for me to go down there.”

“It’s safe,” said Pairo. “Right now, it’s safe.”

“How do you know?”

“I was down there.”

“The lake might not effect you the same way.”

Pairo agreed, or else didn’t think he could convince Leorio otherwise, and led Leorio to an equipment room nearby. Five sets of neatly folded expedition gear sat expectant on the back shelf. Pairo indicated a pile of respirators and light work gear closer to the door that Leorio could use for going downstairs, but Leorio stared at the worksuits.

“Kurapika put those,” said Pairo before Leorio could ask. “For emergencies.”

“Two for him and two for me. One for you?”

“My size is very small.”

“Or, Kurapika’s just…” Leorio started to say, but couldn’t finish. He shook his head to clear it and went to select the respirator and light gear he needed from the shelf near the door. In a few minutes, he was ready to go. He nodded for Pairo to lead the way.

Despite the track Segundino had left upstairs, no water was collected on the floor. The air, however, was unmistakably humid. Leorio use his En and a flashlight to navigate past debris and around corners while Pairo walked with greater confidence ahead of him, as if he were retracing a route he’d memorized by heart. He brought Leorio to a door hanging at a slanted angle out of its frame as if it’d been blown open. Beyond was a grey room full of unused storage pallets. A ladder stood in the corner surrounded by scattered tiles and torn insulation material. The drop ceiling against the wall above it had been pulled down and tossed aside, revealing the narrow, empty space it’d concealed. A quick scan of the room revealed several similar holes, but the widest remained the one above the ladder. The overall impression given was that of someone desperately searching for something and ultimately finding it.

Leorio approached the opening in the ceiling without needing to ask whether this was what Pairo had brought him to see or not.

“You and Kurapika have to leave.”

Leorio rested a hand on the ladder and shined the beam of his flashlight up into the ceiling. He scanned around once, grunted in mild astonishment to himself, and then passed the light over it all again. “What’s this?” he asked, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a random piece of the scattered equipment he’d taken from Dr. Costu’s room.

“To…” Pairo started, but didn’t know the word. He tried in his own language, but Leorio shook his head. “Make the little explosives’ explosion.”

“Triggers for the detonators or something?” asked Leorio, equally unsure.

“There’s no detonation.”

Leorio was no authority on what detonators for small explosives would look like, so he couldn’t confirm there weren’t any by eye. How Pairo would know instead of him was unnerving.

“Does Kurapika know there are explosives down here?”

“Maybe not.”

“ _Maybe_ not?”

“I think he doesn’t.”

“Why?”

“He would leave.”

Leorio nodded. “So would I,” he murmured, craning his neck to look back up one last time before stepping off the ladder. He went around the room next, and to his astonishment, found every opening had small explosives already in place. His snap assumption that someone had been searching the room had been wrong. Now, he could only assume they’d been setting up a demolition.

“How many more are down here?”

“More.”

Leorio sighed and motioned to the opened door. “Let’s have a look, then.”

Leorio stepped out into the hall ahead of Pairo, but froze, nearly causing Pairo to run into him. Although the hall was empty in both directions, he heard the distinct sound of people wading through knee deep water. He lifted his own feet to test if the ground were wet. Such high water should’ve been coming in through the door already, and yet, the floor remained dry.

“Where’s that coming from?” asked Leorio. 

Pairo pointed down the hall, in the direction of the storeroom. Leorio was already shaking his head in disbelief, although he’d guessed the answer beforehand.

“Let’s go,” said Pairo. He pulled Leorio’s sleeve, but Leorio jerked his hand back.

“What’s that?” asked Leorio as the wading and splashing started up again, somehow closer than before, and yet nothing around them had changed.

“Some things,” said Pairo. “Ignore it.”

“What things?”

“Look here instead,” said Pairo, motioning in a direction Leorio didn’t follow. He stared into darkness instead, listening.

“What’s down there?”

Pairo let out an exasperated sigh. “Leorio,” he said in a tone of reprimand Leorio knew well from Kurapika. The familiar name and irritation attached to it jolted Leorio back. The flashlight beam that’d drifted to his feet shot up to focus on Pairo. 

“Please. It’s more important this,” said Pairo.

They continued down the hall and inspected two more rooms, working their way gradually in the direction of the stairs. Inside these rooms, Leorio didn’t hear splashing or any sounds other than those made by him and Pairo. Only in the hall did it start up again, getting closer and closer, but without ever arriving.

Leorio reached the stairs before Pairo, forgetting in his haste the drastic difference in their strides. The emergency lighting was stronger there, highlighting two hunched figures sitting close together on the lower steps. Leorio halted and once again swung a hand back to keep Pairo away.

Two Segundinos sat before them, one resting heavily on the other’s shoulder, face obscured in the darkness of the stronger light behind them that blurred their figures into carefully outlined shadows of their shapes. 

“Is there another way up?” asked Leorio when Pairo caught up to him. 

“The elevator.”

“Does it work?”

“Kurapika never used it.”

“But does it—”

Leorio choked back the question as the upright Segundino turned its head towards him. Leorio couldn’t read the expression on its face.

As he was about to back away and risk the elevator, the sound of wading and splashing grew behind him, daring him to look back. He had to get away from it, back upstairs, as soon as possible. Unfortunately, he finally remembered that the elevator went directly into the main storeroom, which was where all the madness radiated from. The lake was messing with his mind, testing him with two unfavorable options, and there wasn’t enough time to stand around agonizing over which one to take.

“Take the flashlight,” said Leorio, handing it back. Pairo accepted it, but fumbled for a moment, putting Leorio into an uneasy darkness. The two Segundinos hadn’t moved, but he’d expected they wouldn’t. One of them probably wasn’t Segundino, and the other staring at him was too carefully minding it to rise.

“We’ll go together,” said Leorio. He knelt down, never looking away from the pair on the steps. “Get onto my back.”

This time,  Pairo didn’t argue against the indignity of being carried. Leorio could move faster without waiting for Pairo to catch up with him, and speed was important if passing by Segundino triggered whatever it was about Pairo that’d caused him to attack upstairs.

“Light the way,” said Leorio after standing and adjusting Pairo’s position on his back. Pairo clenched the handful of Leorio’s shirt he was holding tighter as Leorio took his first steps towards the stairs. Segundino continued to stare at them, expressionless, while the figure slumped against him remained immobile.

“Was it you?” asked Leorio after squeezing past Segundino and hurrying halfway up the flight of stairs before stopping. Segundino let out a short sigh through his nose and stabilized the head on his shoulder before shifting to look up to where Leorio was looming above him. “Did you set all this up?” asked Leorio. “Were you planning to blow up the station or something?”

“Or something,” said Segundino with a rueful smile unfamiliar to Leorio. “I couldn’t access the rest of the explosives or the detonators after Morro took them. With all the coming and going and nosying in, there was little time to improvise. Instead, when I had the chance, I took the measures available to me. I was going to destroy the control room while Kurapika was outside fixing the camera.”

Leorio narrowed his eyes. “Where’s Segundino?”

“I haven’t seen him for hours.”

A small, concerned sound rose from the back of Pairo’s throat, though he said nothing. Leorio tightened his grip around the boy’s legs and took another step up the stairs.

“Will you take them all with you when you leave?” asked Dr. Costu. “Morro, Kurapika…” he smiled and nodded towards Pairo peering out from over Leorio’s shoulder, “this one, that one, my brother, myself, Febiu, this body my brother dragged out for me to prove I was dead, every single stranger in the woods, _and_ yourself.”

Leorio’s mouth was set in a thin line as Dr. Costu, or whatever this was, listed everything it could think of and laughed at how ridiculous the list was growing.

“What are you going to do?” asked Leorio. “Are you waiting for something?”

“I’m waiting to be incinerated in the blast,” said Dr. Costu. “I think they’re going to do it. They’re really going to do it. Finally.”

“Who?”

“Our friends upstairs,” said Dr. Costu. “You should leave. Alone would be quickest, unless you’re also waiting to be incinerated in the blast. In that case, have a seat. Down here it’ll be guaranteed.”

“I’ll head up,” said Leorio. He turned to go, climbing a few more steps, until Dr. Costu called out after him.

“Watch your back,” he said. “That kid won’t save you.”

“I don’t expect Pairo to save me,” said Leorio. “He’s a child.”

“ _Pairo_ ,” repeated Dr. Costu. "His name?”

“Yeah.”

“Hm,” said Dr. Costu. He faced forward with a shrug. Leorio reached the first landing and started up the next flight.

“It’s not Segundino,” the faint voice of Dr. Costu called out. Leorio slowed, but didn’t stop climbing. “His name isn’t Segundino. It’s Cyfran.”

Leorio didn’t answer, but Pairo in his ear repeated the name to himself under his breath, committing it to memory.


	27. Ready, Set

Leorio set Pairo down in the hallway and headed back upstairs to the dormitory floor. He took the steps two and three at a time, leaving Pairo far and fast behind him. Pairo caught up to him in Kurapika’s original room assignment, where Leorio searched inside drawers and under items left strewn about from the day before.

“Hunter license, check,” muttered Leorio as he tossed said license onto the bed. He turned the medical pouch he was holding inside out and shook it before making one final check for concealed pockets. “No other travel documents in this bag, so, I guess it’s just the license,” he said to himself. He paused, his face scrunched up in thought. “That seems kind of risky. He seriously doesn’t have any other documentation but this? Oh well.”

Pairo went to the desk and moved aside a pile of papers and books. He pulled out a plastic folder containing documents of various sizes. Cards tucked into protective plastic sheaths shifted and slid from side to side as he walked over and held the folder out to Leorio. “I was looking,” said Pairo to explain how he knew where it had been. “The photos.”

Leorio also looked at the photos. Several iterations of Kurapika over the years stared unsmilingly out from national and regional IDs. At a glance, most seemed to be converted driver’s licenses Kurapika had dutifully updated between countries of residence, since pulling out a Hunter’s License every time he’d needed to identify himself would’ve been too conspicuous for everyday life.

Leorio thanked Pairo and tossed the folder onto the bed with the Hunter’s License. He opened the unlocked chest in the middle of the room next, tossing aside stacks of loosely folded travel clothes, a pair of headphones, and a map of Snaut Province. At the bottom, he found what he was searching for: a Beetle phone, HunterX model. Kurapika had packed it on Leorio’s advice, since it was one of the few phones capable of sending a signal on the Hunter network from the heart of the Solaris Basin.

First, Leorio checked the phone’s battery. The HunterX model could hold a charge for over a year, thanks to Hunter exclusive Nen imbued technology. Kurapika had also been careful enough to turn it off when he wasn’t using it. The phone joined the documents on the bed, though Leorio walked it over instead of tossing it. It was supposed to be nearly indestructible, but now didn’t feel like the time to test that. He bent to grab the map of Snaut Province as well and spied a set of once neatly folded Kurta garments underneath. It took him less than a second of deliberation before he was grabbing these as well, using them to wrap everything else before leaving.

Downstairs, early dawn light glowed hazily in the hallway windows. Leorio stopped and observed the sun’s progress as it pulled itself up slowly over the peaks of the distant mountains. Although the weather in the basin hardly ever changed, something in the sky at that moment appeared colder. As quickly as the thought crossed his mind, he dismissed it. If things went smoothly, he’d never have to see this sky or the mercurial lake reflecting it ever again.

“Get my bag from the room and bring it to the doctor’s office,” said Leorio to Pairo while they were still outside the infirmary. “Don’t wake Kurapika yet. I still need to check on Morro, and that’s not up for debate this time. I can’t waste all morning arguing over it.”

Pairo set out to the task with a strong sense of purpose, but his determination didn’t prevent him from grabbing the incorrect bag. Leorio barely glanced over as he clarified he’d meant a suitcase, not a literal bag, before turning back to the Beetle Phone he’d taken apart on the desk. By the time Pairo brought the suitcase, the phone had been reassembled and Leorio was typing with his thumbs. 

“Open it, please,” said Leorio with a nod to the empty counter behind him. He finished his message as Pairo set the suitcase down. One message had been all he’d needed. Wiggling the loosely fastened back of the phone free, he snapped off a small device he’d attached inside. Not bothering to reassemble anything, he tossed the three pieces into a zippered pocket in the lid of his suitcase. He stood up and brought over the additional items collected from Kurapika’s room and packed them neatly among his ties and medical supplies.

“Stay here, with Kurapika,” said Leorio after leaning on the suitcase to force it shut and snap the clasps down. “You don’t need to come with me to see Morro. I won’t be long.”

“What do you need to see Dr. Morro for?” asked a voice Leorio wished had been Pairo’s. He clenched the corners of the shut suitcase he’d just shut, suppressing an outburst of frustration over Kurapika’s incredibly inopportune appearance. 

“I need to check up on him,” said Leorio between gritted teeth without turning around. “He might’ve gotten hurt in the blackout. It would be remiss not to follow up. This is my job.” 

Leorio didn’t have to look to know Kurapika was standing with his arms crossed, shaking his head.

“Last night you said we should stay put in in the infirmary,” Kurapika reminded him. “You said wait for HQ to respond, that they would know better what had gone wrong.”

“Morro might need assistance sooner than that.”

“Didn’t you sent your En to check already?”

“En doesn’t tell me everything I might need to know about his condition.”

“It’ll tell you he’s alive and present, which is as good as what we knew already. What more do you need than that?”

“ _More_ ,” insisted Leorio. He shoved the suitcase as he turned around to face Kurapika. Pairo was now hovering at Kurapika’s elbow, and took a step back. “You can be alive and present and injured. Dying people still have aura. Hell, you can be literally dead and still have aura depending on how or why you died. You of all people should know all about that.”

Kurapika sighed. “I’ll clarify,” he said. “What more do you need that’s worth the risk of leaving the infirmary by yourself in secret while I’m asleep? What happened to your plan to wait?”

“There might not be time for waiting. Also, I’m starting to suspect the station’s been cut off from outside. Mizai shouldn’t have taken this long to get back to us. He might not even know I’m here yet. Maybe whoever’s hunting you found out where you were. Maybe I was even followed, and—”

“You’re starting to sound like how you did when we discovered the lake leaking in downstairs,” warned Kurapika. Leorio didn’t deny it.

“Yes,” he agreed. “You could say I’m finally ‘frantic’, now. I’m thinking we should leave the station.”

Though they were arguing, nothing about Kurapika’s tone so far had been short. He’d never even furrowed his brow. With a nod, he simply said, “I see,” and after a short pause pushed off from the doorframe he’d been leaning against. He walked out of the office far calmer than when he’d entered. This peculiar, almost passive ease that had taken over caught Leorio off guard. He’d been ready for a fight the moment Kurapika had shown up, but Kurapika wasn’t making the effort to win. He was already gone, and Leorio was staring at an empty doorway.

Leorio heard Kurapika murmuring instructions to Pairo as they gathered cups from the table. Without thinking, they tried the microwave to reheat something, but it didn’t work. After a pause, an emergency supply packet was torn open and a flameless cooker set up. Leorio emerged from the office soon after to see Kurapika kneeling on the floor, warming up the tea Pairo had prepared for everyone hours ago. He waved to the counter full of papers and station blueprints in explanation when Leorio looked around the room.

“A warm placebo,” said Kurapika, repouring and holding out the drink as Leorio drew closer. Leorio took it. Kurapika held out another cup to Pairo, who thanked him, reminding Leorio too late that he should’ve done so, too, even if he hadn’t asked for Kurapika to go through the trouble.

“There are explosives set up in the basement,” said Leorio as he stared into his mug. Kurapika sipped at his own tepid sports drink without looking up.

“I’m not making it up,” said Leorio. “I’m not as paranoid as that. I wouldn’t be so paranoid I’d hallucinate and believe it. They’re really there. Pairo led me downstairs to show me. Also, I know you already know Costu’s room is full of equipment for setting them up. I ran into Segundino there. He’s trying to destroy the source, too, now.”

Something about Kurapika’s posture shifted, growing relaxed, resigned. Leorio took note. Kurapika didn’t look surprised. “Him, too?” said Kurapika finally. “How would Segundino be able to set up explosives?” he asked. “He barely knows where he is. Who’d direct him? The lake?” 

Leorio decided in that instant that, until he saw Dr. Morro, he wasn’t going to mention the new visitor downstairs. He didn’t want to delay longer with an endless argument over how they needed to save themselves over someone who didn’t even want to escape or survive. 

“The lake wouldn’t need to blow up the station to get rid of it,” said Leorio, rolling his wrist to hurry along the cooling of the hot tea.

“Or it was Dr. Costu,” said Kurapika. Leorio froze. “Dr. Morro said Dr. Costu had connections. Maybe whoever was sending him supplies is the same person obstructing communication, omitting details in reports, everything else.” 

“Who would that be?” asked Leorio. “Even in the redacted information Mizaistom uncovered, there was no mention of an accomplice. The previous Hunter mentioned blowing up the source to destroy it, but, well, no-one was taking that seriously.”

“What redacted information?” blurted Kurapika before Leorio could raise his mug to his mouth. Leorio gestured vaguely with his drink.

“There’s a whole report about Dr. Morro,” he said, “how he claimed to see ghosts or something in the woods. Neither Costu nor that other one, Toquo, confirmed the same.”

“You mean you knew all along then that there were visitors?”

Leorio made a face. “I wouldn’t say I knew, but I didn’t run screaming when I met Pairo, did I? I had a notion of something like that being a possibility. Seeing Pairo confirmed this was really happening.” 

Kurapika set down the sports drink in disbelief. “What else were you expecting out here?”

“Not anyone blowing up the station, that’s for certain,” said Leorio. Kurapika wasn’t pleased with this. Leorio sighed and tried again. “Look, there was medical information you couldn’t see. Stuff a psychologist or doctor would review before arriving, not a technician. From what I read, the visitors coincided with Morro’s experience. We can confirm that the phenomenon of the visitors arriving is true. However, confirming it exists doesn’t tell us why it’s happened, doesn’t mean it will continue to happen, doesn’t tell us anything except that Morro isn’t actually out of his mind.”

“Isn’t, or wasn’t?” asked Kurapika. “He’s been exceptionally strange this past week.”

“That’s why I need to check on him. This isn’t normal for him. He needs help.”

Kurapika picked up his drink again and sat back. He took a slow, sullen sip, not speaking until he’d finished the glass. Leorio blew on his hot tea and waited.

“I would’ve liked to know,” said Kurapika, “ about the visitors. Someone should’ve said something.”

“You were told it’s impossible to prepare for everything out here. Telling you every little thing that’s ever transpired in this station is pointless at best, and paranoia-inducing at worse. What happened thirty or forty, or even just five, years ago isn’t guaranteed to happen again, ever. If you’d come here expecting to recognize what was happening based on whatever has happened before, you’d only have been more bewildered when it all turned out different. The moment everything starts looking too familiar out here is the moment you stop seeing how quickly everything changes, evolves. Even now, it’s changing.”

“What’s changed so far?”

“The longer we’re here, the greater the risk becomes. I don’t think it stops with just the visitors. The lake can do more than show us upsetting pictures of whoever’s inside our heads. Morro’s paranoia makes the presence here more foreboding, threatening. My vigilance against that threat makes it take more aggressive action. Your ignorant apathy makes it lean into developing and transforming Pairo into whatever spurs any kind of reaction whatsoever from you.”

Kurapika listen closer than Leorio expected, nodding along without making even the smallest sound in interjection, even if the idea Leorio was sharing was hard to put to words. Leorio tried a sip of tea to see if the temperature were palatable. At last, it was.

“I’m going to see Dr. Morro,” said Leorio after a few quick gulps, draining the mug. There wasn’t much time to waste. “Thanks,” he said, handing the mug over. Kurapika accepted it robotically, nodding again as he stacked it on top of his empty glass. Behind him, there was a clunk followed by the shattering sound of Pairo’s mug as it fell to the floor, still half-full.

“What’s wrong?” asked Leorio as Pairo slumped over, unconscious. He made to stand, but a new heaviness pressed down on his body. He had to fight to stay upright as his body went limp and slipped downwards, no longer heeding his commands to rise, to speak, to do anything. He glanced desperately in Kurapika’s direction, but Kurapika was staring at the empty glass and mug in front of him on the floor.

“Why?” Leorio tried to ask, but his voice emerged slurred and weak. He could barely move his lips to pronounce the word, much less rise above a whisper. In the silence Kurapika must’ve heard him, but he didn’t answer. He shook his head softly to himself as Leorio stared at him, refusing to look away until he slipped out of consciousness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The HxH Big Bang 2020 is still accepting authors until Feb 15th, and artists until March. [Here is a link to the tumblr.](https://hxhbigbang2020.tumblr.com)
> 
> There is another big bang for 2020 that you may see around this year, but the applications for that one have closed. [Here's that one's tumblr as well.](https://hxhbb20.tumblr.com)
> 
> Anyway, I guess Togashi can keep on resting as long as he needs to; this fandom has two big bangs to tide it over.
> 
> (Sorry I am behind on comments and chapters and everything these weeks! Cue "January was a long year" memes)


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